LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

Clia]Tr:___-l Copyright No. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



A NORWAY SUMMER 




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A NORWAY SUMMER 



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LAURA D. NICHOLS 

AUTHOR OF "UNDERFOOT," ETC. 




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BOSTON 3 

ROBERTS BROTHERS 

1897 






Copyright, 1897, 
By Roberts Brothers. 



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Slnfocrmts Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



En 3Lo&mg jWnnorjj 

OF 

FRANK BOLLES, 

The Students' Friend. 



CONTENTS. 

Chapter. Page. 

I. Northward Ho! i 

II. The First Tidings 7 

III. BlRKENGAARD 1 7 

IV. Christiania 21 

V. The Viking Ship 30 

VI. St. Olaf's Bad 40 

VII. Consequences . 49 

VIII. Sarabraaten 60 

IX. Throndhjem 67 

X. In the Arctic Circle 79 

XI. Sailing round Norway 91 

XII. Bergen 104 

XIII. Vestre Slidre 124 

XIV. Sidney 135 

XV. The S^ter 145 

XVI. Back to Christiania 152 

XVII. Halcyon Days 159 

XVIII. The Last Letter 171 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page 
A Norway Contrast (Svartisen) . . . Frontispiece^ 

The Viking Ship 31^"" 

y 

Throndhjem 67 

The Cathedral at Throndhjem 73 

Torghatten 7$^ 

Troms# 82 ^ 

North Cape 85^ 

Group of Lapps 91 

Bj^rn and Seven Sisters Mountains .... 95^ 

Laatefos 121 r 

Old Borgund Church 132 ^ 



A NORWAY SUMMER. 



CHAPTER I. 

NORTHWARD HO ! 

" WHAT do you think about it, Henry ? " said Mrs. 
Marlow, laying down a letter which she had read 
twice to herself and once aloud. 

She took up her needle-work as she spoke, and 
gave a soft little sigh, quickly checked ; but he 
heard it, and said to himself, " Dear mother, it 
hurts ; but she will say ' yes ' all the same." He 
was a picture of indolent comfort, stretched his 
full six feet of length on her sofa, one arm thrown 
over his shaggy brown head, while in the hollow 
of the other elbow nestled a little chinchilla- 
colored kitten, sleeping profoundly after a long 
frolic with the blue silken tassels of his dressing- 
gown. 

" Think ?" he lazily answered. " Oh, I think 
one may as well have no sister, as have one so 
popular as our Ellen." 

Judging from his sleepy eyes, his idleness at 



2 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

ten o'clock in the morning, his quiet voice and 
white hands, you would naturally condemn him 
as a sybarite, and you would have been entirely 
wrong. Henry Marlow was a hard-working young 
physician, already high in the esteem of his elders 
in the profession, and of whom they prophesied 
certain and honorable success. He had been up 
all night fighting against membranous croup for 
the life of a poor woman's child, and, his victory 
won, was allowing himself one hour of rest, after 
bath and breakfast, before taking up the day's 
round. 

" Of course it will be a great pleasure and 
advantage to her," he added ; " and there 's no 
doubt that she deserves it — " 

" No indeed ! " interpolated his mother, fervently. 

" Or that the Harley girls deserve and need 
her—" 

" N-no." 

" And, in short, mother, if you can bear to part 
with her, I '11 give her my blessing and any need- 
ful — " She thought that the last word was 
" shekels," and, looking up to make sure, saw 
that Henry was as soundly asleep as the kitten. 

This made her wipe her eyes and murmur some- 
thing about " best a mother ever had," and then 
she read the letter again. 



NORTHWARD HO ! 3 

It was an invitation for her only daughter to 
spend the coming summer in Norway with two 
girls who were going to visit an older sister who 
had married there. 

Ellen Marlow had the gift of making friends 
wherever she went. 

She was not a beauty; those who loved her 
best never went beyond calling her pretty, or 
sweet-looking, but her face rested and cheered 
all who looked upon it. She was neither intel- 
lectual nor witty, but had stood well in her 
classes, and had a happy faculty of appreciating 
the wit and wisdom of others. She was not 
especially accomplished, though she sketched a 
little from nature, and could sing in a chorus, or 
if she had a child in her arms ; but, as the servants 
said, " she had a way with her," and from her 
babyhood had diffused sunshine wherever she 
went. 

Her guardian, Professor Willoughby, said, " It 
was her power of sympathy ; " his wife, Ellen's 
cousin Miranda, thought it was her unselfish- 
ness; her mother ascribed it to her power of 
loving ; while Henry declared that " Ellen was so 
fond of lending a hand, that if she came upon a 
housebreaker, her first impulse would be to -hold 
the ladder for fear he would fall." 



4 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

She had made friends of the Harley girls a few 
years before, at the Adirondacks, when they were 
staying there for the health of their brother Hugh, 
and Ellen was travelling with the Carruths. The 
friendship had been kept up by correspondence, 
',and renewed in a New Hampshire excursion they 
made together, just before Hugh and his sisters 
went to Madeira. The brave, gentle fellow had 
died there ; and the girls had but recently returned, 
lonely and bewildered by the loss of the joy and 
care of many years. 

The letter was from Annie, the elder, and 
though Mrs. Marlow had never seen her, she was 
won by the love for Ellen, and the consideration 
for herself, which was evident throughout. 

" The more we want her with us, the more we 
feel how much we are asking of you ; but sister 
Eleanor begs us to bring a friend to be her guest 
with us, as dear Hugh would have been, so she 
will have no expenses except the voyage, and 
such excursions from Christiania as you may 
approve. " 

" It is a great deal of hospitality to accept 
from a family I have never seen," said Mrs. Mar- 
low, later, to her niece, Mrs. Willoughby. " So 
it is," answered Miranda ; " and yet I am sure that 
they feel that the obligation will be on their side. 



NORTHWARD HO ! 5 

Don't you see that if those two sisters make the 
voyage by themselves, they will think and talk of 
poor Hugh all the time ; whereas, if Ellen is with 
them, they will make an effort to be cheerful for 
her sake ; and the same when they get to Norway. 
Depend upon it, they will go about and see and 
do and enjoy ten times as much, if she is there to 
give them a motive ; and this sister of theirs is 
wise enough to know it." 

"I believe you are right," responded the 
mother ; " and here the dear child comes." 

We need not dwell on Ellen's astonishment 
when she heard the news, or on her half-remorse- 
ful joy when she found that she was really going. 
Her mother and Mrs. Willoughby were too busy 
getting her ready, to think how they should miss 
her; but the three families with which they were 
intimate — the next neighbor Rays, the Boston 
Carruths, and old Dr. Bonney and his wife — 
were loud in their lamentations as well as con- 
gratulations. 

It was on the deck of the " Albatross " that Mrs. 
Marlow first met the Harleys, and was instantly 
confirmed in all the pleasant impressions she had 
received from their letters. Annie was tall and 
slight, with dark eyes and hair, and a peculiarly 
sweet voice, while plump little Margaret was 
equally winning in her own way. 



6 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

Ellen felt it a great compliment that old Dr. 
Bonney was there too, though he was character- 
istically growling at u the folly of letting those 
children rush off to the North Pole by them- 
selves," and at the same time slipping a roll of 
gold pieces into her hand. 

Jessie Carruth was the only one who really 
cried ; though Mrs. Marlow did n't trust herself 
to talk much, and Ellen's voice was decidedly 
tremulous; but Jessie always did exactly what 
she felt like doing, and did not hesitate to tell her 
friend, between her hugs and tears, that she con- 
sidered it " quite mean of the Harley girls to snap 
you up, just when I 've come home from Europe 
and wanted you for myself." 

Her brother Sidney may have felt the same, but 
he did not express it, though he was so silent and 
grave that Ellen wondered if he thought her 
wrong in leaving her mother; and instead of 
walking out to Cambridge with Henry, as the 
latter proposed, he chose to go home with his 
sister, much to her discomfort, for he was cross 
all the way, and took her severely to task for 
" sniffing and sobbing like a baby, when you must 
have seen that Ellen cares twice as much for those 
other people as for you." 



CHAPTER II. 



THE FIRST TIDINGS. 



Ellen's serene presence was sadly missed by 

her family until her first letter came, but that 

seemed to span the distance between them with 

a bridge of love over which their imaginations 

flitted easily and incessantly. It was only a 

scrawly, scrappy journal of the voyage, but as 

original and precious to her mother as if no 

one had ever before crossed the sea. 

May 2, 1 88— . 

Dear Mother, — I suppose you think we are all in 
the miseries of sea- sickness ; but we have been quite 
comfortable so far. We did n't sleep much the first 
night, and got up before six, and stayed on deck all 
day. The sea was glorious, with white caps away out 
to the horizon, and land only a deep-blue cloud be- 
hind us. 

To-day is so cold we are below. Margaret took out 
her cards to play solitaire, and was horrified when we 
told her it was Sunday. 

3d day out. 

We had a delightful surprise this morning when the 
captain produced the letters and books you had told 



8 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

him to keep till now. How lovely of you to think of 
it ! I read your letter over and over, and Annie has 
been deep in " Emma," ever since. We begged for 
more ; but he said the post-office had been robbed 
and there was no more mail. 

May 5th. 
Rolling too much to write. 

May 6th. 

Day before yesterday we saw six icebergs ; and just 
as I was getting into my berth at night, a crashing, 
grinding sound was heard, and the steamer stopped, 
went on slowly, stopped again, and started again. 
We went up and saw ice, ice, in every direction, 
with lines of black water between the blocks, but no 
bergs, so we went below again, but not to bed. We 
read and talked till some one said there was a big berg 
ahead ; and we hurried up, and there it was ! A snow 
mountain ! It seemed close to us, but must have 
been farther than we thought. We retreated to the 
chart-room. The steamer was slowly backing ; a few 
moments of suspense, and then the captain came in 
and quietly poured a cup of coffee for himself saying : 

" We Ve got rid of that fellow." So we went to bed 
and slept till breakfast-time undisturbed. 

May 9th, not a cloud. 
We lay mummy-like in our deck chairs all day. A 
glorious sunset and many wheeling flocks of gulls ; some 
so near that we could see their yellow beaks, black 
bead-like eyes, and little feet tucked up under their 
tails. 



THE FIRST TIDINGS. 9 

We were signalled off Fastnet Light this morning ; 
and when we went on deck could see shadowy out- 
lines of Irish mountains, and have been near enough 
the coast all day to see now and then a ruined tower 
and the beauty of green grass. I tried to make a 
sketch in water-color, but was driven below by a 
sudden shower. Ever so many little fishing-boats are 
dashing around, the sails often burnt sienna color. 

Liverpool, May 13, 188 — . 

We are safely here. Annie's cousin, Mr. Brooks, 
met us and brought us to these lodgings in his carriage. 
The landlady's name is Whittington. We have a 
parlor and two bed-rooms for two and a half guineas 
a week. A nice little supper by ourselves of chops 
and toast, and then a walk. We are to stay here a 
week, and make excursions, and then Mr. Brooks will 
go with us to Hull, and see us off for Norway. Annie 
needs the rest before another voyage. 

Mrs. Brooks will call on us to-morrow, and then we 
are to dine there, half an hour's ride out on the 
Mersey road. 

Two delightful days followed for our girls. It 
was a joy to be on land once more, with green 
fields and flowery hedgerows at hand. They 
astonished their landlady by breakfasting at eight, 
and prowling among the shops before other lodg- 
ers were astir. Everything entertained them, — 
queer faces, odd costumes, clumsy carts, hansoms 



IO A NORWAY SUMMER. 

of brilliant colors ; but the visit to Mrs. Brooks 
was best of all. 

She proved to be a very agreeable companion. 
The weather was delightful; they saw primroses 
and broom beside the track, and pink-edged 
daisies in the fields. 

Tea was served under apple-trees in full bloom ; 
hawthorn was in bud, forget-me-nots and wall- 
flowers (bright yellow and rich dark red) in beds 
near by. 

They played tennis on a wonderfully smooth 
lawn, and walked after dinner in a birch grove 
near the river, beyond which faint outlines of 
Welsh hills were seen. 

One day was spent in Chester, of which Nelly's 
note-book only said, " Quaint and interesting be- 
yond words." In a letter to Jessie she wrote: 

" You would revel in your favorite color here. 
The gardens glow with laburnum, yellow pansies, 
and wall-flowers; the fields with gorse, butter- 
cups, and dandelions. I thought of Harry when 
we had stewed rhubarb, very sweet and served 
with whipped cream, called Devonshire cream. 
That was at Mrs. Brooks's. Mrs. Whittington 
seldom gets beyond bacon, eggs, and chops, so 
we have bought a four-penny tin of Yarmouth 
bloater, and a Turkish jam of figs and honey, 



THE FIRST TIDINGS. II 

for a shilling, to add to our bread and butter 
at tea." 

Another day or two were spent at York, with 
the hasty record, " Cathedral, window of five 
sisters, see Nicholas Nickleby, chapter VI., ruins 
of St. Mary's; boat-ride on the Ouse;" but a 
pretty water-color sketch of quaint red-tiled roofed 
houses, built on the old wall, went with the letter. 

From York, they went by train to Hull, and 
drove at once to the dock, engaged passage for 
Norway, and then rambled about the town, visit- 
ing an old church and then the birthplace of 
Wilberforce. This was a quaint, prim, two-story 
house, behind a high prison-like wall, with an 
enormous gateway, its posts topped with huge 
stone balls. 

" No wonder he prized liberty, if he lived long 
in that jail of a place," whispered Margaret, and 
gladly turned to a still queerer house opposite, 
with overhanging upper stories, where William 
Penn stayed several weeks before he sailed for 
America. In another part of the town they were 
amused by the name of a street, — " Land of Green 
Ginger," painted in large letters on the corner ; 
but they could not learn the origin of so odd a 
title. 

An evening drive gave charming glimpses of 



12 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

the river Humber, of two pretty villages, — Kirk 
Ella and West Ella, named after some Saxon 
ruler of long ago ; and they never tired of admiring 
the ivy-grown cottages, holly and box hedges, 
and the hedgerow blossoms, — blue veronica, 
herb robert, ragged robin, white mint, and 
Wordsworth's celandine. 

After supper, Mr. Brooks saw them safely on 
board their steamer ; and as she did not sail until 
two o'clock, they had several hours of quiet sleep 
before daylight, which found them rising and 
falling with unpleasant tumultuousness on the 
rough waters of the North Sea. 

They bravely dressed and went on deck, but 
descended ignominiously about noon, and lay in 
helpless misery the rest of that day and the 
whole of the next, which was Sunday. Margaret, 
naturally the liveliest of the three, lay limp as a 
broken doll in her berth, occasionally murmuring : 

"Why was I born? What fools we were to 
come ! " and at last, " I don't care what you girls 
do, / shall spend the rest of my life in Norway." 

" If we live to get there," moaned Annie. 

" Yes, but in any case, I will never set foot on 
a steamer again ! " 

"We might go back by way of Behring's 
Straits," suggested Ellen, faintly; "I believe 



THE FIRST TIDINGS. 13 

they're only forty miles wide, and IVe always 
wanted to see Alaska." 

" Oh, you horrid Cambridge thing ! How can 
you remember any geography now!" but here 
a dreadful plunge and sickening roll reduced 
them all to despairing silence. 

A kind and attentive stewardess was their only 
consolation, until, on Monday morning, they 
reached Christianssand, on the southeast coast 
of Norway, where the sea was so much less rough, 
that Ellen and Margaret succeeded in making 
a staggering toilet, and went on deck, leaving 
Annie in an exhausted sleep. 

" We 're both the color of cheap window- 
glass ! " cried Margaret, rashly glancing at the 
mirror while she wound a Shetland cloud over her 
old felt hat and tumbled hair. " Come, Nell ! " 
and they reeled up the companion way, into the 
keen, delicious air, which soon restored a natural 
color to their blue lips and blanched cheeks. 
Land, beloved land was in sight all the forenoon, 
and in the afternoon they entered Christiania 
Fiord. " Pinch yourself, Ellen Marlow," whis- 
pered Margaret, now quite restored ; " can it be 
really true that we see a fiord at last, or is this a 
Stoddard lecture?" 

11 It reminds me of the mouth of the Penobscot, 



A NORWAY SUMMER. 



going to Castine," said Annie, who had joined 
them ; but the others were indignant, and as the 
lovely water-way grew narrower and narrower, 
and the hills higher, and first red-roofed farm- 
houses, and then whole villages were seen, she 
had to own that all was unmistakably new and 
foreign. 

After so many hours of tossing and physical 
anguish, the long tranquil twilight was delightful 
indeed; and as bend after bend revealed new 
beauties, they grew silent from very pleasure, 
only occasionally exclaiming, " Oh, look ! look ! " 
and once Annie whispered, " Oh, how Hugh would 
have enjoyed this ! " 

As they glided on, the hills grew deeper and 
deeper purple against the gray and crimson sun- 
set sky, which was still bright at half-past eleven, 
when they reached the wharf at Christiania. 

In the bustle that followed, they had only a 
moment to feel themselves strangers in a foreign 
land, when a friendly voice was heard calling, 
" Annie ! Margaret ! " and there was a broad- 
shouldered blonde-whiskered man, pushing 
through the crowd, and greeting the Harleys and 
then their friend, with such beaming cordiality, 
that they felt at once shielded and safe, and all 
possibility of homesickness was gone. 



THE FIRST TIDINGS. 1 5 

Soon the four were rolling along the streets 
of Christiania in an easy carriage, on their 
way to Mr, Erlsen's house, two miles out in 
the country. 

Though nearly midnight, there was still day- 
light enough for Ellen to read the signs over the 
shops; while Annie and Margaret were busy 
questioning their brother-in-law about " sister 
Eleanor, and the children." 

" They would have come to meet you too," he 
said ; " but the steamer was late, and she sent the 
children to bed, and I told her to go too ; but I 
think we will not find her asleep, oh, no." 

Just then they turned in at a gateway decorated 
with American flags, whirled along between 
tall fir-trees, reached a porch wreathed with 
flowers, and in another moment Annie and 
Margaret were embracing the sister they had 
not seen for ten years. 

She was tall like Annie, but fair and plump 
and dimpled like Margaret; and she welcomed 
Ellen with such cordial sweetness as to make her 
feel at home at once. 

" You 're all as tired as you can be, I know," 
she cried, guiding them into a charming room 
where supper was spread ; " have n't I been tum- 
bled and jumbled in that dreadful voyage myself? 



1 6 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

Oh, yes ; but you must eat a little, and then you 
shall go straight to bed and sleep just as long as 
ever you please in the morning." 

How delightful it was, an hour later, to undress 
without staggering, and to creep into spacious 
beds on firm land, with no hurry and no journey 
for the morrow. 



CHAPTER III. 



BIRKENGAARD. 



From Ellen's note-book. 

BIRKENGAARD, May 25th. 

HERE we are, well and happy, and very much 
at home in this beautiful place. Mrs. Erlsen is 
just as kind as mamma would be to any one far 
away from her own people ; and Mr. Erlsen has 
read all Cousin John's books, and admires them 
very much, and says that he shall adopt me on 
the strength of my connection with him. The 
children call me Cousin Ellen, for they seem to 
think I belong to the family. They are dear lit- 
tle things, though very shy. Henrik is nine, 
Clara six, and then comes Helen, the plumpest 
and quietest baby I ever saw. Henrik has taken 
me all about the grounds this morning ; and al- 
ready there are violets, primroses, and anemones 
all through the grass, and many trees in full leaf. 
From all the windows there are lovely views of 
near and distant hills ; and from mine I have a 



1 8 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

glimpse of the Christiania Fiord between dark firs 
and pale-green birches. The house is large and 
pleasant, and my room opens out of Annie and 
Margaret's. I have just received mamma's first 
letter, and now home does not seem half so far 
away. Mr. Erlsen drove us in town this morning, 
in a pretty double phaeton, and we got some 
money at the Credit Bank ; and I have learned 
that a hundred $re make a krone, or crown, and 
that is worth about twenty-eight cents. In one 
place we met a queer group of emigrants, which I 
sketched. We had no trouble about our trunks 
at the Custom House, and have been unpacking 
and getting settled. Now I am sitting on the 
veranda with Annie, and Margaret is rambling 
under the fir-trees with the children. 

Evening. 

This afternoon we drove to see a hunting-lodge 
of the king's, called Oscar's Hall. It is a cream- 
colored tower, which I had noticed from the 
piazza, against a dark background of firs. It is 
surrounded by beautiful woods, through which 
wind many drives and footpaths. From the ter- 
race in front of the tower, we had a magnificent 
view of the fiord and the city, surrounded by 
hills; and we drove a long way through the 



BIRKENGAARD. 1 9 

woods, which were of fir, pine, weeping birches, 
and wild cherry in full bloom. 

Underneath, the ground was fairly carpeted 
with violets, anemones, hepaticas, cowslips, and 
oxalis, and, as if that were not beauty enough, we 
came suddenly out upon the shore of the fiord, 
where waves were dashing upon the rocks. 
The road followed a precipitous shore for a 
while, and then we came out among green fields. 
Some of the houses we passed were very pictur- 
esque, like Swiss chalets, only larger. Many 
were unpainted, and some had roofs of curved 
red tiles. 

Mr. Erlsen's buildings are all roofed in this 
way, and the effect, among the dark pines and 
delicate green birches, is wonderfully pretty. 
The house forms one side of a large court, and 
rises in the middle to a high tower. Right and 
left, are stables and other buildings ; in front, a 
beautiful lawn ; and behind, a garden with winding 
paths among lime and maple trees, with plenty of 
rustic seats. Beyond the garden comes the real 
farm, and there is a lovely brook tumbling over 
rocks, just like New Hampshire, and presently 
it widens into a pretty pond, and beyond that are 
fir woods, and rocky hills covered with birches, 
and meadows full of marsh marigolds, or king- 



20 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

cups. Mrs. Erlsen says that we shall soon find 
lilies of the valley blooming wild everywhere. 
How I wish mamma were here to enjoy these de- 
lights with me ! Cousin Miranda would be 
sketching in every direction. 






CHAPTER IV. 

CHRISTIANIA. 

" WHO will walk into town with me, this lovely- 
morning? " said Mr. Erlsen, at the breakfast-table, 
on the girls* first Sunday. " English service is 
held in the Fest-sal of the University, and the 
chaplain of the consulate is to preach." 

Ellen thought that this would seem delightfully 
like Appleton Chapel at Harvard, so her hand 
went up at once, and little Henrik, who had be- 
come her devoted knight, immediately followed 
suit. 

" Nobody is obliged to walk/* said Mrs. 
Erlsen ; " for I am going to drive in ; " and Annie 
decided to go with her. 

Margaret hesitated ; but a glance from the win- 
dow showed her that the dust had been laid by a 
shower in the night, that the sky was deeply 
blue, with fleecy clouds chased over it by a brisk 
breeze, and she enlisted with the walking party. 
Henrik kept persistently beside Ellen, leaving 
Margaret to his father; but as his favorite was 



22 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

intending to write to her brother Henry in the 
afternoon, she kept near enough to question her 
host about the University, while not neglecting 
her little squire. She learned that it was estab- 
lished by royal charter in 1811, Frederic VI. 
being king, and began with a staff of only six 
professors. 

" But now there are five faculties," continued 
Mr. Erlsen, " over fifty professors, and a thousand 
students ; and instead of having the lectures — all 
of which are free — in different parts of the town, 
and the collections scattered about in Govern- 
ment rooms, we now have a fine building of our 
own, finished in 1853. The Library is open five 
days in the week ; there are two hundred and fifty 
thousand volumes ; and our Storthing — as you 
say, Parliament or Congress — votes for it four 
thousand specie dollars, year by year. Your 
Cousin Willoughby would take great joy could 
he see its richness in North Danish works of 
most early periods. " 

Here they came in view of the University, — a 
substantial edifice of granite, brick and stucco, 
with two wings at right angles to the main front, 
thus enclosing a spacious court on three sides. 

" The whole of this left wing is the library," 
said Mr. Erlsen ; " the right contains the collec- 



CHRISTXANIA. 23 

tions of Northern Antiquities. We have over forty 
thousand coins and medals — some very rare 
mediaeval — " Here a gentleman joined Mr. 
Erlsen, and Ellen fell back to Henrik, who, in 
his best English, tried to tell her of a Gamme 
or Lapland hut which he would some day show 
her, at the back of the building. 

The service proved long, and the girls were taken 
by surprise when prayer was offered for the Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

"That was in your honor, you must know/' 
said Mr. Erlsen, as they came out. 

"Not really ?" cried Margaret. 

" Oh, yes, indeed : one of the prominent members 
of the church told me that the rector, hearing that 
some American ladies would probably come, con- 
sulted him as to the proper way to make prayer 
for their president." 

" I must tell Harry that," said Ellen ; but her 
letter was not written as soon as she intended, for 
Mrs. Erlsen now asked them to go with her in the 
carriage to call on some friends. They learned 
that not only were visitors expected to make the 
first call, but that Sunday after service was the 
generally accepted time. 

They were most cordially welcomed everywhere, 
and found their new acquaintances very agreeable. 



24 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

In the afternoon, the largest carriage was 
brought out, and the whole family went on a 
long drive through beautiful forests of weeping 
birches, hemlocks, and pines, the ground carpeted 
with ferns and anemones. 

" I never saw so many wild flowers/ ' cried 
Annie, as they came out of the woods into mead- 
ows glowing with kingcups. " These are fields 
of the cloth of gold ! " 

"And I think all the flowers are larger and 
deeper colored than ours/' said Ellen. 

" These glimpses of the blue fiord with all those 
fascinating sail boats and rocky islands, please me 
most," remarked Margaret; " but look, girls ! there 
are some people playing croquet ! How very 
strange ! " then fearing that she had been impolite, 
she hastily added, " perhaps they are Jews, and 
this is not their Sabbath." 

" Oh, no, they are Norwegians and Protestants, 
and good religious people, too," said Mr. Erlsen, 
laughing ; " but Sunday is here a holiday, and after 
church every one is free to play croquet, to dance, 
to play card games, — anything that they would 
do other days." 

" It seemed very strange to me when I first 
lived here," added his wife ; " but now I am so used 
to it, that I forgot it would shock you." 



CHRISTIANIA. 25 

" Yes, yes ; Eleanor is a very good Norwegian 
now," said her husband, proudly; " and I, I am a 
good American, am I not? You never would 
suspect that I was not, would you ? " he eagerly 
demanded of Ellen, much to her embarrassment; 
for though she always understood him, his accent 
was undeniable, and his choice of words some- 
times quite comical. That very day he had 
referred to the year in which Columbus detected 
America, and had spoken of a manufactory as a 
fabrication. 

She colored deeply, and stammered out : " I — 
I only wish I could hope ever to speak Norwegian 
as well as you do English," and Annie came to 
her aid by adding : — 

"You are a shining example to us all, Her- 
mann ; for you never use slang, or say ( ain't/ 
or drop your g's." 

Returning from the drive, they found callers at 
Birkengaard, — a sweet old lady and her two sons, 
one of whom was a learned astronomer, and the 
younger a rising naturalist. 

They were hospitably kept to tea, and all sat on 
the lawn afterward, enjoying the sunset and talk- 
ing over an expedition to the North Cape, which 
Mr. Erlsen proposed making with the girls, and 
which the brothers had already made. 



26 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

After the guests had gone, Annie said that she 
was too tired for letter-writing, and asked Ellen 
to join her in a walk in the grounds. 

" It will rest us after the exertion of being agree- 
able so long, and we can get some wild flowers to 
put in our letters." 

Ellen agreed ; but Mrs. Erlsen laughingly in- 
quired if it were a Cambridge custom to go flower- 
gathering at ten o'clock at night. Watches were 
hastily consulted, and it was found to be indeed 
so; but the girls persevered and succeeded in 
filling their hands with great golden kingcups 
before daylight had wholly faded. 

The next morning Ellen rose early, and had 
filled several pages of a letter to her brother be- 
fore she was called to breakfast by little Clara, 
whose English did not go much farther than, 
" Good-morning. Please come down, mamma 
says," uttered in a timid but earnest voice, with 
cheeks rosy with bashful pride in her own achieve- 
ment. After this and every meal, the children 
shook hands with their parents, Norwegian fash- 
ion, saying, " Tak for maden" or thanks for the 
meal ; and Ellen delighted them by following their 
example. She was not allowed to return to her 
pen, but was carried off with the other girls for a 
day in Christiania, Mr. Erlsen acting as cicerone, 



CHRISTIANIA. 2J 

solemnly bidden by his wife not to let them get 
too tired, as they were to go out to tea in the 
evening. 

As in loyalty bound, he took them first to the 
royal palace, driving through a fine wide street 
called Carl Johans Gade, after King Bernadotte. 
Well-kept pleasure-grounds extended on one side, 
and attractive buildings on the other, among which 
the Storthing, or Parliament House, Saint Saviour's 
Church, and the Stor Torv, or great market, 
adorned with a statue of Christian IV., were the 
most imposing. 

The girls were at first disappointed by the fresh 
and modern appearance of the town, having a 
vague impression that everything in the Old World 
must look ancient and timeworn ; but they were 
told that, though founded in 1624, it had been 
three times nearly destroyed by fire, and most of 
its picturesque old wooden buildings replaced by 
safer but prosaic material, — yellow brick, stone, 
and stucco. 

Oslo, now only a suburb, was the original settle- 
ment, but that had been burned, and Christiania 
founded in its stead. The palace, though sur- 
rounded by beautiful grounds, and commanding 
a most lovely view of the fiord, the cheerful city, 
and background of wooded hills, was also " disap- 



28 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

pointingly modern and spick and spandy," Mar- 
garet declared ; and Mr. Erlsen, to indulge her 
preference for the antique, drove next to the for- 
tress of Akershus, which though, no longer of 
military importance, was sufficiently venerable 
and charged with historic interest to satisfy the 
most romantic. The date of its foundation is lost 
in the past ; but it is known to have been besieged 
as early as 1310, and to have successfully resisted 
Charles XII. in 17 16. 

As they strolled along the grassy ramparts, 
now popular promenades, looking out upon the 
sparkling waves and tranquil fields, and trying 
in vain to realize the sanguinary struggles and 
desperate deeds of long ago, they were joined 
by a friend of Mr. Erlsen's, a dapper young 
lieutenant in a becoming uniform of dark blue 
and red, with silver cord trimmings. Margaret 
found him a decidedly agreeable addition ; but 
Ellen and Annie agreed apart that his stiff little 
military bows, and carefully arranged English 
sentences, made him the most distressingly unhe- 
roic and modern feature of all. It did not add 
any glamour of romance to the occasion, that he 
was obliged to leave them to join his regiment, 
which was on duty at the palace, there being 
some fear of a riot, owing to a strike among the 
tile-makers. 



CHRISTIANIA. 29 

From the fortress they now drove to the Uni- 
versity, where Mr. Erlsen's pride and enthusiasm 
carried them from collection to collection till 
poor Annie was ready to drop with fatigue, Mar- 
garet became sleepy, bored, and hungry, and 
Ellen felt as if her head must burst with all that 
she was trying to store within it, for the sake of 
Henry and her cousin, Professor Willoughby. At 
last even their guide noticed their pale cheeks 
and dragging feet, and remorsefully carried them 
home, where he was received at the door by his 
wife, crying, " O Hermann, Hermann, dinner has 
been waiting an hour ! These poor girls are half 
dead. Never, never, will I trust them to you 
again ! " 



CHAPTER V. 

THE VIKING SHIP. 

A RAINY day followed this expedition, giving 
the girls a welcome opportunity to rest and 
make up their note-books and letters. Ellen 
had been most of all interested in the remains 
of the old Viking ship, and felt as if she must 
share her pleasure with Amy Ray, her oldest and 
dearest Cambridge friend, who was kept too busy 
by domestic cares to read or travel much. " It 
seems," she wrote, " that all over Norway there 
are mounds which are known to be ancient burial- 
places, and now and then one is opened, and 
very interesting things are found ; but it costs so 
much to do it, that the work goes on slowly. A 
few years ago the University of Christiania opened 
one at its own expense, and was rewarded by 
finding one of the wonderful old Viking ships. 

" It was at Sandefiord, a little town not far from 
here, and we are to make an excursion there, 
soon. 

11 You know, in old, old times here, it was the 
custom when a chieftain died to bury him in his 




THE VIKING SHIP. 



THE VIKING SHIP. 3 1 

ship, with his horses and dogs, harness, gold and 
silver ornaments, etc. They then dragged the 
ship well up on the shore, covered it with moss 
and then with clay ; and all this is what was found 
at Sandefiord, and brought, with great difficulty 
and care, to the University, where we saw it 
yesterday. 

" The ship was about seventy feet long, larger 
than any found before ; and the bones of a man, 
three horses, and several dogs were in it. 

" The professor who showed us about, and who 
is a very learned man, said that it was undoubt- 
edly buried in the ninth century, and now, after 
a thousand years of darkness, has come to light 
once more, but not for the first time. There 
are signs of its having been opened and robbed 
of the gold and silver ornaments, which ought to 
be there and are not. Probably this was done 
soon after it was first buried. In spite of all 
these years, there are traces of paint on the 
outside of the ship, and its ornamentation con- 
vinces the antiquaries that some Viking of great 
importance found here his last resting-place. 

" The nails which fasten the ship's timbers show 
that it belonged to the first iron age; but some 
of the parts were dovetailed together, just as 
they would be to-day. It is supposed to have 



32 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

carried a hundred and twenty men, as the bosses 
from that number of shields were found. 

"The prow was very sharp, and must have 
cut the water beautifully, urged by so many 
rowers, and by the wind in its great sails. These 
were of woollen material. The remains of a silk 
mantle, which may have been brought from the 
far East, was wrapped around the hero's bones. 

"The rudder, a huge oar-shaped thing, was 
fastened to the ship's side. Mr. and Mrs. Erlsen 
saw all this at Sandefiord in 1880, the year it 
was discovered. The excavating was done with 
the utmost care, and some one gave Mrs. Erlsen 
some little bits of wood, one of which she has 
given me. It is of oak and still hard. The 
shields had all crumbled away ; but we saw many 
of the metal bosses with which they had been 
ornamented. They were of gilt bronze, with 
figures of dragons, and knights on horseback. 
We also saw golden ornaments dug from other 
mounds, — pendants, necklaces, rings, and coils, 
the latter used as money, a little bit being broken 
off for payment. But what pleased me most, was 
learning that this wonderful relic was found on 
the farm of a poor widow named Gokstad, who 
was just going to sell her dear old home to pay 
her debts, when, as a last hope, her sons decided 



THE VIKING SHIP. 33 

to dig into this mound, which had always been 
called Kongshougetiy or king's hill, from the belief 
that a royal hero was buried there. They soon 
found signs that it was so, and were sensible 
enough to stop and carry the news to the Anti- 
quarian Society in Christiania, who paid the 
mother five hundred dollars for the ship itself; 
and she took several hundred more in fees from 
visitors who swarmed to see it. This, to her, was 
a fortune, and let us hope that she and her sons 
have been happy ever since. 

" Now to change from Vikings of nine hundred 
years ago, to your humdrum friend of present 
days, I must tell you that we went last night to 
a real Norwegian tea-party. There were the 
Erlsens and ourselves, an artist, an English cler- 
gyman, a pleasant married couple named Rosen, 
and their daughter, and the Lieutenant Bonval 
whom we had met before. Our hostess was an 
aunt of Mr. Erlsen's, or Annie and Margaret 
would not have felt like going ; and I really think 
Annie would have preferred staying quietly at 
home, but Hermann looked so distressed when 
she spoke of it, that she could not bear to refuse 
him. I had the honor of being taken out by the 
artist, who spoke English tolerably well. The 
clergyman took Annie, and Lieutenant Bonval 

3 



34 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

Margaret. He is quite smitten with her, we 
think ; but she only makes fun of him. Now, I 
know that your dear housekeeperly mind is won- 
dering what we had to eat. An abundance, I 
assure you. Fricasseed chickens with pastry, 
salmon trout, tongue, cauliflower, sweet-breads 
or something in a rich mysterious sauce, shrimps, 
cold sliced meat, dressed lettuce, tea, coffee, beer, 
and wine, and several dishes I have forgotten. 
Would n't even our omnivorous brothers have 
been satisfied? After tea, we all shook hands 
with our hostess and said, ' Tak for maden] and 
she replied, ' Vel bekomme* which means, i I 
hope it may agree with you/ Not an unnecessary 
wish after such a table, you may think. Then 
we looked at engravings and a fine album of 
photographs (where I was pleased to see our 
Longfellow), and some of us played cards. By 
and by a magnificent cake was served, with fancy 
frosting and macaroons on the outside, and fruit 
and cream inside. 

" The Lieutenant continued to devote himself 
to Margaret, while Annie and Miss Rosen fell in 
love with each other, and she told us of a young 
man who will be glad to give us lessons in Nor- 
wegian. We are to begin to-morrow, for we want 
to learn as much as we can before we go to the 



THE VIKING SHIP. 35 

North Cape. Be sure and tell Harry this, so that 
he will not think I am frivolous all the time. I 
wish every day that you were here to enjoy all 
these lovely places with me," but even as Ellen 
wrote these words, in all sincerity, a second and 
inner self seemed to be saying, " and yet I am 
glad you are at home, for I do hope that missing 
me will make Harry see more of you, and that 
perhaps — perhaps — " and a rosy glow went all 
over her face at some happy possibility, though 
she wrote steadily on. " We are reading aloud 
Carlyle's * Early Kings of Norway/ Can't you 
get it, and so be in a sympathetically Norse frame 
of mind? I hope you are not wearing your dear, 
unselfish fingers off, making spring suits for 
Esther and Carol and Daisy and Grace, while I 
am junketing about like the improvident grass- 
hopper. Do go over often to see Mamma," again 
her cheeks grew red. " But here come callers, 
and I must jump into another gown." 

Not long after this the promised excursion was 
made to Sandefiord. 

They started at half-past six, Margaret's sleepy 
eyes still blinking comically. On the steamer 
they met some new Norwegian friends, a Mr. and 
Miss Rosen, who with Mr. and Mrs. Erlsen and 



36 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

the three girls made a pleasant party of seven, a 
number, that Ellen and the Harleys had learned to 
love in old Adirondack days, when Hugh, Sidney, 
Harry, and Jessie had completed the group. 

The boat was gayly trimmed with flags, for it 
was the first day of the hotel season ; and it went 
very fast, keeping up a vigorous whistling to warn 
everything else to keep out of the way, as it 
wound in and out between islands where the pas- 
sage was often too narrow for two. 

It was warm and sunny, and the fiord was as 
smooth as glass. 

Sandefiord is just beyond the entrance of Chris- 
tiania Fiord, so they followed that beautiful water- 
way its entire length. Stopping at Dr<£bak and 
Moss on the eastern shore, a nice breakfast was 
served on board, and the girls tried reindeer's 
tongue for the first time ; but it was so smoked 
and salted that there was no special taste to it. 
Reaching Sandefiord about half-past one, they 
took a drive about the pretty town, which is 
a favorite watering-place. There are sulphur 
springs and mud baths. The mud contained sul- 
phur, iodine, and other things, and is dug up from 
the bottom of the sea, and the patient is plastered 
all over with it, and then it is scraped off and the 
hose is played on him awhile. They dined at the 



THE VIKING SHIP. 37 

hotel, and took the return steamer at five, Mr. 
Rosen telling fascinating stories of old Vikings 
and other heroes, as they glided along between 
wild rocky shores and lonely islands, where every- 
thing romantic seemed easily possible. 

Then there was a Professor Frosch, who had 
joined them, and was quite polite to Annie. He 
had helped in digging up the wonderful old 
Viking ship, and gave a most interesting account 
of it to the attentive Ellen. 

The sunset was beautiful, and the brightness 
lasted all the way home, the water of a strange 
coppery lustre where it reflected the yellow sky, 
and steel blue in the shadow of the hills. Many 
little boats, with all sails set, flitted around them, 
wholly reflected in the clear water. 

Tired but happy, they reached Birkengaard a 
little before midnight, and were soon wrapped in 
the deep sweet sleep that follows an out-door 
day. 

June had now begun, and the weather was 
warm enough to call for cambric dresses and 
summer silks, as Ellen duly recorded for her 
mother's benefit ; and in her rambles on the fiord 
shore, she found lilies of the valley, forget-me- 
nots, and heart's-ease, all blooming freely and wild 
among the grass. A generous cluster was pressed 



38 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

and sent to Jessie Carruth in a letter which 
described a charming drive to Maridalen. " The 
road led through dense woods, with glimpses of 
the sea, and on the way home we went through 
a factory village just as the mill-girls were coming 
out. They all wore white kerchiefs with colored 
borders (on their heads), and were generally 
rosy-cheeked, plump, and contented-looking. 

" Yesterday we went to a christening in the old 
Akers Kirke in Christiania. It is eight hundred 
years old, built of stone, with a square, pointed- 
top tower. The guide-book calls it a ' three- 
naved basilica in the Anglo-Norman Romanesque 
style ; ' but you will not care for that. The baby 
was named Ingeborg Katherine Grace. The 
Lutheran minister wore a long, full, black gown, a 
white ruff, and a little black skull cap. There were 
two god-mothers and two god-fathers. First a 
hymn was sung ; then there was a long address 
and a prayer; then the baby's head was held 
over the font, and the minister scooped up as 
much water as he could in one hand, poured it 
three times over the little head, and then scrubbed 
it well with a stiff towel ; but Ingeborg was calm 
through all. The Norwegian sound of Katherine 
and Grace was very funny. 

" In the afternoon we drove to a saeter, which 



THE VIKING SHIP. 39 

is a place far up on the hills where the cattle are 
kept during the summer. If you Ve read * Quits/ 
you will remember similar places described. 

"This one has been changed into a gentle- 
man's country-seat, and though built in imitation 
of a peasant's house, is much larger and has 
plate-glass windows. It is of unpainted logs, 
and entirely furnished in wood, some beautifully 
carved. 

"The view from the balconies was very fine, 
looking down upon the tops of pine woods like 
Adirondack Lodge, only instead of Clear Lake we 
had a glimpse of Christiania Fiord, with the city 
at its head. 

" Annie and Margaret and I are constantly re- 
minded of the dear Lake Placid days, and the 
friends who made them so bright ; and when we 
see anything unusually lovely, we feel as if Hugh 
must be enjoying it too. We were told that 
Prince Louis Napoleon once spent a night here, 
and that General Grant came and was delighted 
with the place. So you see we follow illustrious 
steps. We were refreshed with currant sherbet 
after our ramble, and drove home in the long 
lovely twilight." 



CHAPTER VI. 

ST. OLAF'S BAD. 

A FEW days after this the three girls went on a 
two days' excursion with Mr. Erlsen, to visit a 
watering-place called St. Olaf 's Bad or Baths. 

After an early breakfast, the four started in a 
char-a-banc drawn by two lively horses named 
Askar and Sleipner. For a while they followed 
the shore of the ever-beautiful Christiania Fiord 
whose unruffled surface gave back every rocky, 
fir-clad islet, flitting sail, and red-roofed farm- 
house with mirror-like faithfulness, while a soft 
mist veiled the distant hills. Leaving the sea, 
they followed one river after another, each smaller 
but swifter than the last, as they climbed upwards 
towards their sources in the heights. 

By and by a sudden turn brought to view an 
exquisite sheet of water, of very irregular shape, 
lying among hills whose tops were streaked with 
snow. 

" O ! O ! " cried the girls in chorus, " how 
perfectly lovely! Is that our own fiord again?" 

"No," said Mr. Erlsen; "it is called Thyri- 



4i 

fiord, and yet is not an arm of the sea at all, but 
a lake." 

" It is as crooked as our Winnepesaukee, ,, said 
Annie ; " but its mountain setting makes it far 
more beautiful. " And now they all began to feel 
that they needed a supply of new adjectives to 
express the charms of the landscape unfolding 
before their eager eyes as the road wound on 
toward grand, snow-crowned mountains, the lovely 
lake on their left, while fir-clads hills rose steeply 
on the right. 

The road itself was wonderful as an achieve- 
ment in engineering, being in many places cut 
through solid rock, yet always firm and smooth, 
rising with almost imperceptible grade up the 
rugged hillsides. 

" How Harry and Sidney would enjoy this on 
their bicycles," cried Ellen. 

" Yes," said Annie ; " I was just thinking how 
selfish it seems for us four to have all this beauty 
to ourselves, when there is enough to satisfy 
everybody we know." 

"But you use it not all up," said Mr. Erlsen, 
laughing at this new arithmetic. " A few crumbs 
of beauty will be left for those who after come." 
At noon they stopped at a posting-station called 
Humledal, where Mr. Erlsen procured milk and 



42 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

bread to add to the generously filled hamper 
which they had brought. 

" I don't know why it is," said Margaret, as 
they sat feasting under the trees ; " but the more 
I enjoy, the hungrier I get ! " 

" Who would not be hungry in such life-giving 
air? " said her sister. 

" The horses must have a sense of the beauti- 
ful, too," remarked Ellen ; " see how they relish 
their provender." 

A two hours' rest gave her time to sketch a 
beautiful curve of the road, while Annie filled her 
pocket-press with ferns and wild flowers. After 
they had been on the road again two or three 
hours, Askar lost a shoe ; but fortunately a forge 
was near, and the girls accepted a friendly invita- 
tion from the blacksmith's wife to come into her 
little parlor, where Annie took a nap, and the 
others, with horror at their own appetites, partook 
of a second luncheon of delicious cream and 
crackers, urged upon them by the hospitable 
woman. 

" I shall be as wide as I am long, at this rate," 
sighed Margaret; " dear Hugh always said I re- 
minded him of a croquette." 

" Lieutenant Bonval would perhaps leave out 
the ' r ' ? " whispered Ellen. 



ST. OLAF S BAD. 43 

No farther adventure befell them till they 
reached Hc/>nefos, and were shown into neat and 
comfortable rooms in Fru Glatved's Hotel. In 
spite of their double lunch, they were not un- 
appreciative of their dinner, which consisted of 
hare, chicken, little unknown birds, pudding with 
a sauce of cherries, and sponge cake. 

After this they wandered down to the river 
shore to see the fos, or falls, which give name to 
the place. 

The water came tumbling over ledges of rock, 
gliding round some islands, and then over more 
ledges, in a delightfully picturesque way, but was 
useful as well as ornamental, serving as power for 
several flour and saw mills, to which it is led 
hither and thither by a system of troughs, and 
comes splashing and foaming out in unexpected 
places. Their long day in the open air had made 
the girls very sleepy, however, and before nine 
they voted unanimously to go to bed. 

" There are limits even to enjoyment of lovely 
scenery," said Ellen, trying to keep her eyes open. 

" And I have reached mine," added Margaret, 
stifling a yawn. 

" Besides v/hich we must be up early to-mor- 
row," said Annie, rising. 

" Oh, pray do not apologize," said her brother- 



44 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

in-law, as he laughingly shook hands with them 
at the foot of the stairs. Next morning, the 
horses having been sent home, they took a train to 
Vikersund. 

"We are going southward and homeward 
now," said Mr. Erlsen. " Hc/>nefos is at the 
northern end of Thyrifiord, and to-day we shall 
follow down its western shore ; and you can see 
which you best like." 

" Then we shall have been entirely round it? " 
said Margaret. 

"Yes, the lake really ends at Vikersund; 
but the river Drammen issues from it, and runs 
southward to Drammen Fiord, and that bears it 
to the sea. Before we follow it, I show you 
the most favorite watering-place in all Norway." 

"More mud baths?" asked Margaret, with a 
grimace. 

" Yes, and chalybeate springs and conifer 
forests. To read the prospectus, one thinks 
that everybody can be cured of everything; no 
one need ever die." A trembling of her lip 
warned the impulsive man, and he hastily added, 
" Now here we are at our station. Come, Mar- 
garet, you shall choose our carriage. It is 
pleasant to leave the railway, is it not? Ah, 
your eye is upon those brown ponies ! You are 



ST. OLAFS BAD. 45 

a judge, I see. Come, Miss Ellen, it is your 
turn for the front seat; now away to St. Olaf 's ! " 

A short drive brought them to the much- 
praised spot, and all agreed that its charms had 
not been over-stated. Scores of fanciful little 
wooden houses with red-tiled roofs were scattered 
about in a forest of fir and pine. Winding paths 
led in and out ; rustic seats and tables invited to 
rest and luncheon ; a pretty lake lay in one direc- 
tion ; but loveliest of all, was the Kaggefos, where 
the river came dashing down between high black 
rocks, veiled by clouds of mist and spray. 

" Oh, look ! look at that fascinating little mill ! " 
cried Margaret, pointing to the top of the highest 
cascade, where the picturesque building was well 
relieved by a background of pine-covered hills. 

" It 's just like a scene in an opera ! Do, do 
sketch it, Annie !" 

It was indeed too pretty to be left untried, and 
as they were to stay till four, Annie made an 
attempt in pencil, and Ellen one in water-color, 
while Margaret wandered and climbed with her 
brother-in-law. 

About noon, the artists were rejoined by the 
ramblers, who eagerly inspected their work. 

"You have both done extremely well," cried 
their genial host. " You have earned the treat 



46 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

we have provided," and he led the way to one of 
the rustic tables where were placed four large 
glasses of eggedoszs, a refreshing mixture of eggs 
and sugar beaten to a stiff cream, and flavored 
with a few drops of brandy. 

The day had now grown very warm, and the 
sisters were content to sit in the shade, listening 
to the band and watching the crowd of patients 
and tourists, while Ellen took a ramble, and 
finally came to rest with them, and began a home- 
letter, that being an unfailing method of filling all 
spare moments ; for the desire to impart her en- 
joyment to the friends at home was ever-present, 
and mail steamers left every Wednesday and 
Saturday. 

" I never saw so much bowing in my life," re- 
marked Margaret, at last. " How cordial and 
polite people are to each other here ! They can- 
not all be old friends or cousins, and yet you 
would certainly think so." 

" I have noticed it too," said Annie ; " and 
more than that, there seems to be no class feeling, 
no social barriers. Those richly dressed people 
are neither arrogant nor condescending; and the 
plainer ones, and even the waiters, have none of 
that cringing sycophantic manner which was 
often so unpleasant in English shops." 



ST. olaf's bad. 47 

" It is true," said Mr. Erlsen ; " we are very 
democratic. We have no aristocracy. Every- 
body is here as good as his neighbor, and expects 
to be so treated." 

" I like it," said Margaret; " when I was walk- 
ing this forenoon, all the boys took off their hats, 
and the girls smiled and dropped courtesies, and 
Hermann's hat was off half the time. When I 
write a book, I shall say that Norway is the land 
of good manners." 

"And good hearts too," said Ellen. "That 
blacksmith's wife yesterday was as anxious to 
make us comfortable, as if we had been her 
children." 

After leaving St. Olaf's Bad, they took a train, 
and for four hours followed the Drammen River 
southward from its origin in lovely Thyrifiord to 
the flourishing town of its own name. The car 
was about twice as large as an English compart- 
ment, with five windows on each side, giving good 
views of the ever-beautiful landscape. Drammen 
lies between high hills at the head of Drammen 
Fiord, which carries its rushing river to the sea. 
It is the fifth city in Norway in size, and the 
second as to shipping importance, with many fine 
churches and public buildings, three bridges 
crossing its river, one a magnificent iron girder 



48 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

structure for the railroad, 3,800 feet long. 
" Timber, zinc, and nickel ore are largely ex- 
ported," read Ellen from her guide-book, while 
Annie was inquiring about a tower with two flag- 
staffs, on a high hill just outside the city. She 
was told that it was the Brandposten, or fire- 
alarm station; and Mr. Erlsen spoke with en- 
thusiasm of the grand view of city, river, and 
fiord he had once had from its veranda. Cannon 
are fired there whenever a conflagration is dis- 
covered in the city, which has suffered severely 
from destructive ones in 1866 and 1870. 

Leaving Drammen, the road bent sharply north- 
east, climbing steep hills in a truly wonderful 
way, the view ever-widening and the towns look- 
ing more and more like toy-villages, as they were 
left below. Christiania Fiord now appeared on 
the right, then the city itself, and by nine o'clock 
the travellers reached Birkengaard, having de- 
scribed an irregular circle in their two days' 
journey. 

Mr. Erlsen beamed with pleasure, as the girls 
exclaimed, " Oh, Eleanor, how beautiful Norway 
is ; but how nice to be at home again ! " And the 
evening passed happily as they recounted their 
adventures over a bountiful tea-dinner. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONSEQUENCES. 

Meantime Ellen's gentle companionship was 
greatly missed at home. 

" Nelly far away ! Baby wants Nelly ! " was 
often the plaintive cry of little Marion, the only 
child of Professor and Mrs. Willoughby, with 
whom Mrs. Marlow and Ellen had lived ever 
since Mr. Marlow's death. Every one who heard 
the child's wistful cry would mentally if not 
audibly echo it ; for it is not the lively or turbu- 
lent members of a family who are most missed, 
but the quiet ones who give a helping hand here, 
a look of understanding or touch of sympathy 
there, — small, silent things, but refreshing as dew, 
in the dusty ways of life. 

With her mother, it was a permanent sense of 
loss, an abiding thirst. Mrs. Willoughby re- 
marked of her, " Cousin Sarah looks older." 

" She will grow young again when her little 
shadow comes home," said the Professor. 

4 



50 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

" Her sunshine you mean," said Harry, lifting 
himself unexpectedly from a deep chair in the 
bay-window. " Everybody 's sunshine, if you 
come to that. When are you going to be big 
enough to play my accompaniments, and copy 
my rhymes, and mend my gloves, and stroke 
my feathers when I 'm cross, hey, Miss May- 
blossom ?" and he picked up the child and 
carried her off into the garden. 

By and by she came back alone. " Where 
is Cousin Harry, dear ? " asked her mother. 

" Gone to take Miss Amy a lovely bouquet and 
to see if she 's had a letter from Cousin Ellen. 
He cut this rose for me ; and I '11 give it to you, 
Mamma." 

"A very logical sequence," murmured the 
Professor, apparently to his pen and ink. 
" Nature abhors a vacuum; the sister absent, 
the friend present." 

Mrs. Willoughby smiled. It was not a new 
thought to her. " Nothing would please Ellen 
better," she responded. 

" What, Mamma? To have me put my rose 
in your dress? " 

" To have us all comfort each other while she 
is gone," was the answer, with a kiss ; " so let us 
go and ask Cousin Sarah to take a walk, and 



CONSEQUENCES. 5 1 

leave papa to finish his paper on — on cardiac 
affections." 

Marion was accustomed to hearing words that 
she did not understand, in connection with papa's 
writing, and reverenced him all the more for the 
mystery. 

Now it happened that Amy had received a 
letter from Norway, which easily accounts for 
the young doctor's remaining in Professor Ray's 
garden to talk it over, and perhaps also for his 
taking Amy out rowing on the pensive Charles 
at twilight ; but it could hardly explain two more 
evenings the same week (for his home was in 
Boston with Dr. Bonney), unless he were help- 
ing her write her reply, of which there was no 
indication in the ten pages which Ellen received. 
They gave a graphic account of the gayeties of 
Class Day. All had gone well, except when 
Alfred's friend from New Hampshire, a bashful 
freshman, had ruined with salmon salad that old 
pink silk of Amy's, which she had spent three 
days in making over for poor Esther. It told of a 
new engagement in their set; of a wedding where 
Amy had met Ellen's Boston friends the Car- 
ruths. " Jessie was radiantly lovely in white and 
gold, as maid of honor. I could think of nothing 
but the Georgian Maid in our Corbaux's illus- 



52 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

trations of Lalla Rookh, so orientally picturesque 
was she, her eyes by turns roguish and dreamy. 
Sidney was one of the ushers, but did n't seem 
to enjoy the part. He looked bored, and devoted 
himself to mamma and Mrs. Willoughby and 
other married ladies. Perhaps he did not like 
to have Vernon Hay so much with Jessie. None 
of the men like him ; but he is excessively hand- 
some, and Jessie certainly enjoys his devotion, 
perhaps because the other girls envy her, perhaps 
to plague her brother, who calls him that ' trou- 
bador fellow.' He does look operatic. Your 
brother was there, but went away early. Have 
you heard how good your mother is in inviting me 
to go to Lotus Bay with her and the Willoughbys ? 
I shall sit in the ' mermaid's grotto ' of our 
childhood, and miss you more than ever." 

Miss her Amy doubtless did ; and yet it would 
have been hard to find a happier face than was 
hers, during the month she spent on Cape Cod 
with the family of her friend. The eldest daugh- 
ter in a family of three boys and five girls, with 
a semi-invalid mother and a dreamy scholar 
father, she had been head and hands and feet for 
all, ever since she could remember. 

Her vacations had been few, and most of them 
had been arranged by the Willoughbys, so that 



CONSEQUENCES. 53 

she slipped easily and naturally into Ellen's 
place, helping the professor with his proof- 
sheets, Mrs. Willoughby with her fruit-can- 
ning, Mrs. Marlow with her fancy-work, Marion 
with her doll-dressing and rock-rambling, and 
Dr. Harry (who had suddenly given up a bach- 
elor Adirondack-camp plan) in everything that 
a sister-spoiled man could ask of a girl only too 
well trained to brotherly exactions. 

She had spent one summer in this place, when 
she and Ellen and Harry were sand-digging, 
shell-treasuring children, and another more re- 
cently; but then her whole family had been 
boarding in the village, and, as Harry said, " Amy 
was dressmaker and nurse to the whole insati- 
able crew." He intended that this summer 
should be entirely different. Esther, the next 
older sister left at home, certainly found it so, 
and awoke to a remorseful appreciation of Amy's 
virtues. Being an energetic and enthusiastic 
character, just out of school, and casting about 
for a mission in life, beginning to realize that 
she was not, as two or three years ago she had 
fondly dreamed, a second Corinne, she impul- 
sively resolved to abandon all such personal and 
selfish ambitions, and to fill her elder sister's 
place, or perish in the attempt. 



54 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

" Yes, dear noble Amy should be free to marry 
Dr. Marlow ! " whose intimacy romantic Esther 
had quickly perceived, and at first resented ; 
" and I — I, who am far too homely and awkward 
to have a lover, will become all that she has been 
at home." 

These noble resolutions were not kept without 
many failures, — sometimes in temper, sometimes 
in desserts ; many spasms of rebellion from Grace, 
Daisy, and Carol, whom she now dragooned with 
far more than Amy's strictness; Alfred and 
Charley, being older, were too much their own 
masters to suffer from her sway, but indulged in 
frequent jokes over her new role, while really 
regretting that their old companion in pranks had 
" fledged herself into a saint all unbeknownst." 
But Esther persevered, and was so far success- 
ful that Mrs. Ray wrote to Amy not to 
hurry home, for the children were unusually 
well and good, and Esther getting to be quite 
womanly. 

While Ellen's absence was thus working happy 
results in her own family and the Rays', it was 
quite otherwise with Sidney and Jessie Carruth, 
her Boston friends, who, next to Amy, had been 
her nearest and dearest friends. To her intimacy 
with them she owed two notably delightful chap- 



CONSEQUENCES. 55 

ters in her life, — a winter in Washington and a 
summer in the Adirondacks. 

Their parents had cordially fostered the inti- 
macy, justly regarding Ellens influence as most 
desirable for their more volatile daughter; and 
Sidney had been like a true brother both to her 
and Harry. 

And now, her faithful balance-wheel gone, 
Jessie was drifting farther and farther into an 
ultra-fashionable current, where her beauty, her 
liveliness, and her father's wealth made her dan- 
gerously popular. Her only sister had recently 
married and gone to live in another city ; Amy's 
circle was exclusively a Cambridge one, so that 
they seldom met ; and Sidney, in his well-meant 
attempts to guard and restrain her, usually suc- 
ceeded only in irritating and offending the wilful 
little beauty, driving her into obstinate opposi- 
tion, or reserve and concealment still more 
dangerous. 

In fact, Sidney was just then painfully engrossed 
in his own affairs. He was bitterly grieved and 
disappointed by Ellen's absence this summer, 
having fully intended that, before its roses faded, 
he would end a self-imposed probation, confess 
his love for her, and, if possible, win hers in 
return. For a long time he had known that she 



56 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

was the dearest thing in life to him, and he had 
been very near telling her so the previous sum- 
mer, but had been piqued into silence by the 
frankness of her friendship, and her firmness in 
telling him that it was his duty to go to Europe 
with his family, instead of joining her party at 
Lotus Bay. 

And now, just as they were all at home again, 
and he had found her more dear, more winning 
than ever, she had dashed his hopes once more 
by this sudden departure with the Harleys. 

Did it not show that she wished to discourage 
him? That, as he had often feared, her heart 
had been given to Hugh?- — poor Hugh, who had 
loved Ellen as dearly as hopelessly, knowing that 
his days were numbered, that such joys could 
never be his. He had been the only one in the 
whole group who had from the first seen the 
entire truth. Mrs. Marlow and the Willoughbys 
had long seen Sidney's preference for Ellen ; but 
her serene unconsciousness baffled them, when 
they tried to decide whether he would succeed. 
Harry, brother-like, thought his sister an uncom- 
monly nice girl, but not the kind to bowl men 
over, and had often enraged his friend by con- 
triving to leave her out of their excursions, lest 
he might seem to throw her in Sidney's way, or 



CONSEQUENCES. 57 

that she should care too much for him. He fan- 
cied that Sidney liked Amy (if any one), and was 
strongly stimulated thereby in his own admiration 
for the young lady. Amy knew Ellen's feelings 
better than did the girl herself, but was not sure 
of Sidney's ; and so it was Hugh alone who had 
seen the two hearts slowly and surely turning 
towards each other, and had unselfishly rejoiced 
in the happiness he should not live to see. 

And now, with a lover's perversity, Sidney was 
stabbing himself with the belief that it was affec- 
tion for Hugh which kept Ellen aloof from him ; 
grief for Hugh which drew her to his sisters, and 
with a deep and constant nature like hers, might 
prove a life-long obstacle to his hopes. How 
well he remembered when they were all young 
and careless at Lake Placid, how she would drop 
everything, forego any pleasure, if she could help 
Hugh instead ; how many of Hugh's verses and 
sketches he had found in her scrap-book when 
he stole it, to tease her ; how overcome she had 
been when the news of his death came from 
Madeira, refusing all invitations ever since ; even 
her travelling-dress he had noticed was gray, 
trimmed with black. He thought Jessie very 
stupid that she had not spoken of it; but, of 
course, he would not refer to it unless she did. 



58 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

He would not even ask her if she had heard from 
Ellen ; but, as it happened, that young lady was 
anxious that he should escort her to a regatta, 
and voluntarily brought the letter to his room, 
and left it with him, so that he could read it as 
often and carefully as he chose, without fear of 
her mocking eyes. An affectionate allusion to 
Adirondack days gave him throb of pleasure, 
swiftly changed to pain when Hugh's name fol- 
lowed ; yet he was consoled by the undeniable 
cheerfulness of the letter, and the fact that she 
had not forgotten Boston friends. He rose, after 
a third perusal, with the soothed and comfortable 
feeling he always experienced in Ellen's presence. 
" The girl of girls ! " he muttered, touching his 
lips reverently to her signature, and on his way 
down town he bought a copy of " Quits," sat 
up late several nights reading it, and then gave 
it to Jessie, partly because he thought it would 
be more wholesome than the Russian stuff she 
was reading, and partly to propitiate and en- 
courage her to show him her next Norway letter. 
He also went to Cambridge and called on the 
Willoughbys and Rays, which he had not done 
since the " Albatross " sailed, and was richly 
rewarded by hearing of a more recent letter of 
Ellen's to her mother, and seeing the one to 



CONSEQUENCES. 59 

Amy about Sandefiord. Finding that Miss Ray 
had not succeeded in getting Carlyle's " Early 
Kings " from the library, he sent her a copy next 
day, and re-read his own with fresh interest, smil- 
ing as he remembered how he used to guide 
Ellen's reading, and now she was unwittingly 
reversing the parts. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SARABRAATEN. 

DURING the first three weeks of June, Ellen and 
the Harley girls worked diligently at their Nor- 
wegian lessons with Herr Schaben, and made 
good progress, though disappointed in finding 
the language less like German than they had 
hoped. Instead of finding every letter sounded, 
they discovered, with dismay, that in speaking, 
the greater part of every word was neglected, so 
that conversation proved bewildering, even when 
they would have recognized the same words 
in print. 

The weather was now decidedly warm; but 
Ellen walked in and out of the city almost every 
morning to her teacher, while the afternoons were 
spent in social engagements or short excursions. 
One evening they attended the birthday party 
of an aunt of Mr. Erlsen's, meeting many of their 
new Norwegian acquaintances. The first hour 
was spent in rowing on the tranquil fiord, after 
which they returned to the house and a supper 



SARABRAATEN. 6 1 

was served, consisting principally of smore-brod, 
slices of bread and crackers with thin layers of 
different kinds of meat, cut in fancy shapes, with 
meat jellies and slices of boiled egg. Then there 
was chicken, and eel in jelly. The English and 
French consuls were there ; and Margaret had the 
honor of being taken to the dining-room by the 
latter ; but she was afraid to speak French, and 
he spoke little English, so their conversation was 
not very lively. Ellen went out with the English 
clergyman, and had Miss Rosen on her other 
side, so did better. Annie fell to a rosy little 
man, very demure-looking, so that she was aston- 
ished when told that he was one of the leading 
artists of the place and painted bold mytholog- 
ical subjects, Valkyries and spirits of the air 
on wildly dashing horses. The girls saw one of 
them a few days later, and it seemed to them full 
of grace and power. After supper the guests 
all wandered out into the beautiful grounds, and 
amused themselves with an Eskimo dog, and went 
into a small detached house where Mr. Carlen 
reads and smokes, like Professor Ray's " brown 
study," Ellen said. Opposite the wide door was 
a mirror in a magnificently carved wooden frame, 
which Mr. Carlen told them with pride, had 
been seen and admired by the king. The tables 



62 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

and chairs were of carved wood too, and very 
beautiful. They sat here sipping coffee, and 
looking out at the distant hills and lovely fiord, 
and afterwards climbed a tower and had a still 
finer view, while others played tennis. At supper 
Ellen asked for a glass of water ; but Mr. Carlen 
said, "No, no, no ! Can't have that here; that 's 
your New England fashion ! You shall have wine 
and water. Bring some Bordeaux for this young 
lady," and everybody looked at her, and she said 
no more. It proved so embarrassing to decline 
wine altogether, when drinking healths and giv- 
ing toasts were so universal, that she learned to 
touch her lips to her glass, and take as little as 
possible. 

Another day Mr. Erlsen gave a picnic at Sara- 
braaten, an estate of his among the hills east of 
Christiania. Ellen went in a carriage with her 
new friend Thora Rosen, Lieutenant Bonval, and 
the rosy artist. 

The road lay through the oldest quarter of the 
town, very picturesque, but also very dirty. 

Sarabraaten is built in imitation of a peasant's 
house, and stands on a cliff above a lovely lake, 
surrounded by hills. After a lunch of reindeer's 
tongue, and bread and butter, they climbed one of 
the hills. Annie said she felt as if she were at 



SARABRAATEN. 63 

Mt. Desert. After climbing a while, they came 
to a pond over which they were rowed by the 
cow-girl. On one side perpendicular cliffs rose 
directly from the water, and gave back a perfect 
echo. The company amused themselves, while 
waiting for the second boat-load, singing and 
shouting, every sound being faithfully given back. 
Then came a steeper ascent, and all were pant- 
ing and glowing when they reached the top, so 
warm was the day, and without a breath of wind. 
The view was very fine, however, and, as Ellen 
wrote to her mother, " I assure you we were hun- 
gry enough to enjoy dinner ; and such a sumptu- 
ous one I never saw at a picnic. Lobster pates, 
chicken cutlets, red and white wine-jellies, cakes, 
and oranges. Then speeches and toasts ! Mr. 
Rosen gave, ' The President of the United States/ 
adding very flattering remarks on the ' fair repre- 
sentatives of that country now present.' The 
drive home in the cool of the day, facing a bril- 
liant sunset, was the best of all, and there I found 
Harry's letter. Do thank him for it. I enjoyed 
every word. We are busy getting ready for our 
northern trip. Our passage from Throndhjem 
to North Cape and back is already engaged on 
the * Michael Krohn/ which left here yesterday. 
Our state-room is quite large, with four berths, a 



64 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

washstand and table, and is amidships. The 
steamer carries about fifty passengers, and is very- 
neat and nice, Mr. Erlsen says. We leave next 
Wednesday, June 21, at nine, take a steamer 
across Lake Mj^sen to Hamar, the railroad to 
Koppang, and spend the night, reach Thrond- 
hjem Thursday night, which will be St. John's 
night, so we shall see bonfires and fireworks in- 
numerable. 

" Yesterday we had a delightful excursion, row- 
ing to Hovedo, the largest island in the harbor, 
about a mile from Christiania, to see the ruins of 
an old abbey. The row across, and the view from 
the island, were most delightful. Looking towards 
Christiania, we had the fortress with its towers 
and walls directly opposite on a projecting tongue 
of land. On the curving shore to the eastward 
was the old city of Oslo, and in a similar curve to 
the west, the comparatively new city of Christiania, 
and beyond that, villages half hidden in trees, 
back of all, the hills. We went carefully through 
the ruins, guided by a manuscript plan of Mr. 
Rosen's, including church, abbot's room, refec- 
tory, kitchen, hospitium, dormitories, etc. The 
abbey was founded by Cistercian monks from 
Lincoln, England, in 1147, and became im- 
mensely wealthy, including farms and pastures 



SARABRAATEN. 6$ 

now belonging to Birkengaard. Some of the 
wild flowers are said to have been brought from 
England by the monks ; but I did not have time 
to explore as I wished. We had luncheon in a 
grove, and then rowed home. To-day we went 
shopping in Christiania, and paid a visit to the 
Storthing, or Parliament House. The principal 
room is semi-circular, like the Supreme Court in 
Washington, and is lighted by beautiful long 
windows. 

" Of course we could not understand a word of 
the speeches, but we liked the President's face. 
I did not think that the majority of the members 
had a foreign look. They might have been 
Americans, perhaps a little more Western than 
Eastern in appearance." 

Another afternoon they drove to Ekeberg, a 
wooded hill south of Oslo, going close to the 
fort and the fiord, and over a pretty bridge 
to an island, then left the carriage and were 
ferried to another island, where they made a 
call at a house in a beautiful pine grove. Most 
of the family were in the woods or on the 
water; but they gradually assembled from near 
and far, and welcomed their guests cordially. 
The lady was English, and her husband Nor- 
wegian, the engineer of the wonderful Drammen 

5 



66 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

railroad. They insisted upon the party stay- 
ing to supper, after which they returned by 
steamer to Christiania, the sky still glowing 
with sunset hues, though it was nine o'clock. 
Next morning the girls walked into town and 
took their last Norwegian lesson, and called to 
say good-bye to Hermann's aunt, Mrs. Carlen, 
who treated them to wild strawberries, cherries, 
and seltzer water. * The next day was devoted to 
packing and letters, the latter written with un- 
usual affection, as they remembered that three 
weeks must now elapse before they could hear 
from home. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THRONDHJEM. 

June 25, 188—. 

This was the heading of Ellen's first letter after 
leaving Birkengaard, and she very naturally began 
with the query, " Did you ever see a word of ten 
letters with only two vowels? Can you realize 
that your little Ellen is away up in this fine old 
coronation city of the Norway kings? Thrond- 
hjem means throne-home, and is in line with the 
southern shore of Iceland. It is the most north- 
ern of large European cities, and was first called 
Nideros; for it is built at the mouth of the river 
Nid, which makes a most curious twist before 
emptying into its own fiord, so that the city is 
built on a peninsula shaped like a properly cut 
dress-pocket. The guide-book says * like a fig;' 
but you and I are more familiar with dress- 
pockets than with fresh figs. I have no doubt 
that at this very moment you and your whole 
family, in your festal garments, are seated in 
Sander's Theatre, waiting to see Alfred march 



68 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

in with the graduating class ; and, being Harvard 
Commencement Day, it is of course hot, and you 
are all fanning and gasping, while here we are 
feeling rather chilly, in a large room at the Bri- 
tannia Hotel, scribbling away on home letters. 

"We left Christiania on Wednesday, Mr. and 
Miss Rosen, and we three girls. Mr. and Mrs. 
Erlsen saw us off, and of course Mr. Bennett was 
there too. Have I told you about him? He 
has been for more than twenty years the ' guide, 
philosopher, and friend ' of northern tourists — 
for due consideration, of course. He is a walk- 
ing bureau of information as to routes, trains, 
boats, etc., besides keeping a shop where all 
sorts of Norwegian curios and relics can be ob- 
tained. They say that Bennett is not his real 
name ; that he is a graduate of one of the English 
universities, has a history, etc., etc. He is cer- 
tainly a character, and very useful and obliging. 
He requested permission to introduce an English 
gentleman, and presently brought him forward, 
slipping his card into Annie's hand, she being the 
most dignified lady of the party. 

" The stranger was grave and quiet, and, after 
exchanging a few remarks, left us ; and we then 
examined his card, finding, ' Rev. Johns Harley 
Upton/ He soon returned, bringing a taller, 



THRONDHJEM. 69 

older man, whom he presented as his cousin, Mr. 
Vose. They had all their luggage in long white 
canvas bags like bolsters, which they pushed 
under their seats in the cars. 

" They were rather stiff at first, as if they had 
been warned against American girls ; and I never 
shall forget their bewildered faces when Margaret 
opened her bag and asked them if they liked 
crackers and ginger. I verily believe they ex- 
pected fireworks, they were so relieved to see 
only s . biscuit and sweeties/ i 

" Mr. Erlsen says that candied ginger is not as 
common in England as with us ; but they both 
condescended to partake and approve. 

"We left the train at Eidsvold, noted as the 
place where the Norwegian Assembly met in 
1 8 14 and adopted their constitution. The Eids- 
vold Baths are also near here, and a monument 
to Henrik Wergeland, a poet, and the discoverer 
of the springs. 

"The road had been rather uninteresting so far, 
and we were glad to embark at once on our 
steamer on Lake Mj</>sen. This is the largest lake 
in Norway, is four hundred feet above the sea 
level, and said to be 11 14 feet deep! So that 
if you dropped your ring or anything overboard, 
it would sink a thousand feet lower than the level 



70 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

of the sea ! It made me dizzy when Mr. Vose 
told me this; but the next fact was refreshingly- 
prosaic: the best corn crops in Norway are 
raised around this lake. 

" Our Englishmen had held a little aloof during 
the change from train to steamer, as if afraid that 
we should need too much help ; but seeing that 
we were perfectly able to take care of ourselves, 
as to tickets, hand-luggage, seats, etc., and 
wanted nothing of them, they took heart, sat 
by us at dinner, became more and more ani- 
mated, and in fact devoted themselves to us 
from that moment. They are well educated and 
gentlemanlike, and have travelled widely. We 
all spent Wednesday night at Koppang, where, 
as the guide-book says, are some of the finest 
and sweetest views in Norway. It is very funny 
how the trains stop at night, as if they were tired ; 
but Mr. Upton thinks it is because the roads are 
very narrow, and, being often cut through rocks, 
are liable to slides and other obstacles for which 
it is better to have daylight. But at this season 
when it is hardly dark at all, it seems like over- 
caution. 

[Note of later date. Whether more bold or more 
bad y we know not, but engineers now run night 
trains.] 



THRONDHJEM. 7 1 

" Next day we travelled from Koppang to R<£ros, 
a mountain town two thousand feet above the 
sea, and famous for its copper mines. We saw 
great heaps of the ore ; and Mr. Vose got out and 
took a piece, laying a copper penny in its place, 
as a fair exchange. Tell Harry that the ore from 
the best mine is said to have nearly eight per 
cent of copper ; but the production has been lim- 
ited by the difficulty of getting charcoal, the 
woods having been cut away for fuel ; but now 
the works are carried on with coal brought by 
the railroad. Many hundred men are employed 
here. We stopped to dine at R^ros, and after 
seating ourselves in the dining-room, waited long 
and impatiently for some one to come and attend 
to us. At last Margaret could bear it no longer, 
and, going over to a side-board discovered plenty 
of dishes of salmon, cold meats, etc., from which 
we helped ourselves, gallantly assisted by the 
Englishmen. We afterwards learned that this 
was the custom here, a regular price being 
charged for a dinner ; and, as Annie said, we at 
least had no fee to pay to a waiter. Between 
Koppang and R<j6ros, and for some distance be- 
yond, we were very high among mountains, fifteen 
and twenty hundred feet above the sea level, and 
on each side of the valley in which the railroad is 



72 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

built, the hills, many of them streaked with snow, 
rose as many more feet above us. 

" The road lay usually close to the river, follow- 
ing its windings, so that whether looking forward 
or back, we could follow the course of the valley, 
with hills rising one behind another, bluer and 
bluer as they receded. From Elverum to R^ros, 
we followed the Glommen River, and beyond 
R<£ros, almost to Throndhjem, the Gula. Some- 
times we slowly climbed a hill, looking many hun- 
dred feet down into a ravine, the stream brawling 
at its base, and then a mountain stream would 
flash over steep cliffs into the river. The Gula 
was so clear that we could see every stone in its 
bed, the water of a beautiful green color. 

" Sometimes it was calm and deep, faithfully 
reflecting every turf-roofed cottage at its side ; and 
then of a sudden it would spread out its waters, 
and rush and tumble over the stones in frolicsome 
mood, until, just as suddenly, it seemed to remem- 
ber its dignity and became as quiet as a lake. 

" At many of the stations the train stopped sev- 
eral minutes, so that we had time for a prome- 
nade on the platform ; and once we went into a 
field and gathered buttercups. 

" Altogether it was a pleasant journey, and we 
reached here at nine last evening. 




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THRONDHJEM. 73 

" A man from the hotel met us with a friendly- 
greeting, Mr. Erlsen having written to engage 
rooms for us ; but a party of English and Ameri- 
cans had seized the carriage he ordered, and we 
had to walk from the station, happily not very 
far. We spent most of this morning at the 
Cathedral, Mr. Upton and Mr. Vose with us, 
quite as a matter of course ; and really they add 
very much to our pleasure, having travelled so 
much, and now that their stiffness has worn off, 
they talk very well. 

[Ellen wrote this sentence in all innocence, 
little thinking of its results in Cambridge.] 

"You must know that King Olaf Haroldsen, 
who was killed in battle in 1030, was worshipped 
as a martyr, and became the patron saint of Nor- 
way. A well of pure water sprang up where he 
was buried, and is still shown near the south wall 
of the choir of this Cathedral. 

" His bones were kept in a shrine there, but were 
stolen, and no one now knows where they are. 

" The Cathedral has suffered from three fires, and 
little of the original building remains ; but there 
are some exquisite bits of carving, and some 
of the capitals of the columns were like stone 
lace, or, as Annie said, * frozen feathers/ in their 
delicacy. I send you a photograph of the east 



74 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

door, which is quite Norman. We tried to find 

out how old the very oldest part is, but could 

not, and I was really glad, but you need n't tell 

Harry, for now I shall not have to remember it. 

Restorations are going on, in the Gothic style, 

and we are glad to have seen it before any more 

is done. 

" From the cathedral, we and our Englishmen 

went to see a waterfall near Lerfos. The water 

goes over rocks in one huge mass, and reaches 

the base in a cloud of spray. Now I must say 

good-bye. 

" Your loving 

u Ellen." 

Ellens Journal. 

Saturday, June 27. 
Steamer " Michael Krohn." 

Here we are seated on the steamer deck, follow- 
ing a winding channel among snow-topped, rocky 
islands. We left Throndhjem at midnight, our 
devoted Englishmen escorting us on board. They 
seem now to consider us under their care, and 
almost resent it if we allow others to do anything 
for us. After breakfast we came into a bit of 
rough sea, and succumbed to forlornness below 
for several hours. Fortunately, the scenery was 




w 

o 
o 

H 



THRONDHJEM. 75 

uninteresting just then ; but after awhile both we 
and the landscape rallied and improved, the hills 
growing steeper and snow-crowned; and about 
nine in the afternoon, as the captain calls it, we 
dropped anchor near the high mountain Torg- 
hatten, where most of us crowded into a boat and 
were rowed to the shore, where we began a rough 
scrambling climb to the wonderful hole that goes 
directly through the mountain. There were only- 
four ladies to twelve gentlemen, so we had all 
needful help. It is a square opening, four hun- 
dred feet above the sea, over sixty feet high, with 
the huge domelike top of the mountain above it. 
A few of us walked through it, about five hun- 
dred feet. In a crevice at the other side, we found 
a bottle containing the names of a party, so ours 
were written and added ; and thus we learned for 
the first time the names and homes of our fellow- 
passengers. There was a Boston physician, an 
Italian count, a Norwegian reader, a London 
barrister, an English student, two Scotchmen, our 
charming captain, Margaret, Thora Rosen, and 
myself. 

It was very strange to stand at one end of the 
cave and look through it. 

First, you saw the rough stony sides and the 
floor of the cave, scattered with granite blocks, 



?6 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

then a fringe of green on the farther side, and 
down below, the sea, studded with islands, and 
mountains rising along the horizon. 

I found some interesting flowers, one or two 
Ericaceae, an orchid, Pinguicula vulgaris, and had 
quite a botanical talk with the Scotch doctor. 

We had hardly exchanged a word with any one 
before, but this little scramble broke up all 
formality. Mutual interests and even mutual 
friends were discovered, and all became easy and 
friendly. 

[It was with a happy smile that Ellen thus wrote ; 
but a few weeks later her innocent words were 
read by one of her friends with a stern face and 
set teeth, and the hardly repressed demand of her 
unsuspecting mother, " Are you mad to let that 
little rosebud go fluttering about the world for 
Tom, Dick, and Harry to win and wear?"] 

The other ladies are Norwegian and Scotch. 
We had rather scoffed at the Scotch one, because 
she sat on deck and read David Copperfield no 
matter how picturesque the landscape ; but Torg's 
hat seemed to rouse her, and she was as enthusi- 
astic as anybody. The Italian count was from 
Bologna, and carried the big door-key of his 
palace wherever he went. Cousin John will laugh 
when I finish the list with a New York newspaper 



THRONDHJEM. 77 

correspondent ; and Margaret begs Annie and me 
not to say anything original or poetical lest he 
put it in one of his letters. But, seriously, I think 
that they will be worth reading ; because he will 
tell so much that we are too lazy or too ignorant 
to attempt. I will let you know when they begin. 
He is very entertaining, and seems to have had 
hair-breadth escapes from every conceivable 
danger, in every known land. 

Then there are two American youths ; but we 
are not much interested in them. " Enough of 
them at home," Margaret says. Our captain is a 
paragon of thoughtful kindness for everybody. 

We have had frequent showers, which give 
most lovely effects as they pass by, hanging in 
white draperies over the mountains, and followed 
by rainbows forming perfect arches framing 
lovely views of snow-crowned hills. 

Sunday. 

We had service on deck to-day, Mr. Upton 
officiating, while we were gliding among rugged 
mountains where innumerable little brooklets 
came tumbling down over the cliffs into the sea. 
I kept thinking, " The strength of the hills is His 
also " and " The mountains shall give peace to 
the people." About three o'clock we reached a 
place called Mo, which is quite consoling in its 



78 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

brevity after Throndhjem, etc. We girls, and the 
captain, and most of the other passengers went 
ashore and wandered up to a little churchyard 
and along a wood road ; and then the captain got 
the key, and we went into the church. There 
were some paintings of sacred subjects ; but the 
most interesting thing was a carved and painted 
reredos, probably many hundred years old, and 
quaint and ugly in proportion. It was stored in 
a loft. I longed to sketch it, but, oh, dear ! what 
and when do I not long to sketch? We have 
seen countless charming bits to-day : houses with 
tiled or turfed roofs, and painted red or yellow ; 
men with bright scarlet woollen caps ; women with 
white kerchiefs, fleets of little boats, very high and 
sharp at both prow and stern and a beautiful 
curve between. We saw our first Lapp to-day; 
but he must have been a very favorable speci- 
men, as he was neither extremely short nor re- 
markably ugly. It is too cold on deck to write 
any more, and I cannot bear to go below. So 
good-bye. I shall post this at Bodo. 



CHAPTER X. 

IN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. 

On Sunday, June 29, Ellen and her friends in the 
" Michael Krohn " crossed the Arctic Circle. 
Though midnight, it was as light as day. They 
left the supper table at eleven, for night was now 
literally turned into day, and morning was their 
usual bed-time. At the moment of crossing, the 
sun was hidden by clouds, and just on the line was 
a strange island called Hestmands<£, or horseman's 
island. Approaching, the girls saw this horseman, 
his heavy cloak flying out behind him. He is 
supposed to have been turned into stone while 
rushing to seek his beloved, the maiden of Leckc£. 
The horse is left to the imagination; but the 
man's helmeted head is very good. 

They went up on the bridge of the steamer to 
watch for the midnight sun, and to find, if pos- 
sible, some trace of the polar circle. Everybody 
was very lively; and the newspaper man said if 
they were cold, they had only to double the North 
Cape, and all would be comfortable. At about 



80 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

one, the sun shone on its upward way ; and after 
watching the light on the hills for awhile, they 
turned in and managed to sleep a few hours, 
though Annie had to bandage her eyes with a 
black veil to counterfeit darkness. 

Monday was spent sailing among the Loffoden 
Isles, and no one could think of words sufficient 
to describe their wild beauty. The guide-book 
says that they " rise along the horizon like the 
jaws of antediluvian sharks ; " but that only gives 
their shape ; no words can express the gradations 
of color, — the spectral snowy cliffs against each 
other and the sky. From Bodo the steamer 
crossed the Vest Fiord, and, for a few hours, felt 
the swell of the open sea. The captain invited 
the girls up on the bridge, as the place most pro- 
tected from the wind ; improbable as that sounds, 
it was true, for the canvas around it sheltered 
them completely. The unending succession of 
mountains was as impossible to remember as to 
describe. Ellen wrote, " We shall never believe 
afterwards how wonderful and beautiful they 
were; and now we have forgotten how level 
ground looks. I can imagine a Chicagoan almost 
losing his wits in such waves of amazement. The 
only thing that holds us down to earth is the 
occasional waft we get of most ancient and fish- 



IN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. 8 1 

like odors from the huge piles of dried fish on 
the shores we pass." 

June 30. 
Off Tromso. 

Yesterday afternoon the captain gave the party 
another little run on shore. Under overhanging 
snow-mountains they walked through birch 
woods and picked yellow violets, seeing several 
Lapps, flat-faced dwarfish little creatures, in dingy 
brown frocks. The gentlemen tried to talk with 
them in Norwegian, and, failing utterly, sang 
Pinafore songs to them and declaimed dialogues 
in the most comical manner ; but nothing moved 
them from their stolidity till the " Never ? what, 
never ? " scene was given. They evidently thought 
that a fight was to ensue, and were visibly disap- 
pointed by a peaceful ending. In the evening 
there was a concert on deck, one of the Scotch- 
men singing Burns' ballads delightfully, and the 
newspaper correspondent improvising some capi- 
tal verses descriptive of his journey and fellow- 
passengers, to the tune of " Marching through 
Georgia," only they were " Sailing round Nor- 
way." All joined in the chorus. The four girls 
had the ladies' cabin to themselves that night, and 
hoped to sleep unusually well ; but, alas ! about 
three o'clock in the morning, the water came 

6 



82 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

rushing through a porthole over Ellen's bed, leav- 
ing her so thoroughly drenched and wakened 
that she dressed and read " Quits " for an hour. 
" I am enjoying it even more than the first time, 
and it is thoroughly in accord with our out-of- 
door adventurous summer." 

Next morning they reached Tromso, went 
ashore and walked about, attracting a crowd of 
Lapps and Norwegians. A friendly little old 
man escorted the party to the Museum and Art 
Gallery. There was one amazing picture of the 
" Hestmands^ " and the midnight sun, with ducks, 
exactly like Marion's magnetic toys, and flaming 
starfish on the rocks in the foreground. There were 
also quaint carvings, Lapp dresses, etc. ; but best of 
all they enjoyed a silver shop that Mr. Vose discov- 
ered ; and, in return for Ellen's having mended his 
gloves, he presented her with a souvenir of the 
town, a silver-gilt ring, cost thirty-seven cents. 
" Our pleasant party will be broken up at Ham- 
merfest, where the Boston physician, Mr. Murray, 
and the Bolognese (door-key and all) start overland 
for the Gulf of Bothnia, — a long and severe jour- 
ney. The doctor has promised to report to 
Harry if he ever gets back to Boston. I have 
spent a delightfully peaceful afternoon, sitting on 
deck, writing home, and watching the exquisite 



IN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE, 83 

changing lights on sea and shore, and the boats 
constantly coming and going with sailing parties. 
The blessed captain has been careering about in 
his own little punt, and has now lent it to Mr. 
Murray and Thora Rosen, who are rowing ashore. 
We are conspiring to give the captain a telescope, 
as a slight token of our grateful regard. " 

Friday, July 2d, 7 a.m. 

Here I am on deck, and here I have been all 
night ! Yesterday we went ashore at Hammer- 
fest, in search of reindeer. We walked for some 
time along the bank of a snow river, crossed it 
and climbed over stony hills which the Scotch- 
men declared were exactly like their moors; the 
ground was covered with moss, and here and there 
prostrate willows and birches and pink heath-like 
flowers made lovely patches of color. We only 
saw the reindeer in the distance, though the cap- 
tain and the " Times " correspondent ran gallantly 
off to try and turn them towards us. A great 
herd of them has come here, led by that strange 
uncontrollable instinct of theirs to reach and 
drink of the sea, of which we read so beautiful 
an account last year in Crawford's "History of a 
Cigarette Maker." 

In many places we walked through snow which 



84 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

I have never but once before seen in July, and 
that was in the deep cleft at Dixville Notch. 
We were told that the snow was forty feet deep 
here last winter. Going back, we crossed a bog. 
You would have laughed to see the captain swing 
me over the pools. I put one hand on his 
shoulder, he grasped me by the elbow, and I 
flew! 

Wednesday night we saw the most beautiful 
sight we have had yet. After our usual concert, 
at which the captain and chief engineer sang 
Norse songs, I came on deck with Doctor Strong 
for a breath of air. 

It had been cloudy, but just then the sun shone 
out, lighting up the mountain peaks behind us, 
and as the clouds lifted more and more, and the 
steamer entered a broad fiord, the effects of light 
and shade were fairly unearthly. " The light that 
never was on sea or land." The water was per- 
fectly calm, and reflected the golden gray clouds 
and blue sky overhead, and the red bars of the 
northwest. It was all so strange and beautiful 
that I stayed on and on till two o'clock. It 
seemed a sin to sleep amid such glories. 

Of course the consequence was that I had to 
spend the next afternoon in making up my lost 
sleep, and in preparation for the North Cape, 




< 
u 



o 



IN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. 85 

which we reached at half-past ten. We all went 
ashore and began the ascent on the northwest 
side of the cliff. It was very steep, and one after 
another dropped from the ranks. I tried my 
best to keep up courage, breath, and muscle by 
remembrances of White Face and Chocorua, and 
by thinking how proud I should be to write of 
having stood upon the top ; but at last it seemed 
to me a shame to keep Dr. Strong and the cap- 
tain in attendance upon me, — the last lady left, — 
and I begged them to leave me and go on. After 
some protests, they consented, and I was almost 
alone on that grim arctic steep. Not quite, for 
three panting fellow-travellers were within hail- 
ing distance below me. But I was quite free 
to think my own thoughts, and follow my own 
devices, as they did not see me. 

I had not been so alone for weeks ; it was very 
restful and very solemn. Below me lay the bay, 
quiet and gray, no color anywhere, save in the 
red hull of the " Michael Krohn," and the flags 
flying from her masts. At my right, rose steep, 
black, jagged cliffs, made more sombre by lines 
of white, where snow still lingered in ravines ; and 
near by, down dashing in foam, a little mountain 
brook, its rush the only sound that broke the 
solemn stillness. 



86 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

I am not sure that I did not enjoy that half 
hour of solitude on the bleak cliffs more than I 
should have the top, with everybody oh-ing and 
ah-ing, and then having to hurry down. It 
always hurts so to turn away from a grand 
height ! I looked at my watch. It was half- 
past one in the morning. I thought of you all, 
and how little you dreamed that your Ellen 
was perched alone at that uncanny hour on the 
northernmost height in Europe. 

By and by my botanical curiosity awoke, and I 
explored every cranny and crevice in my down- 
ward way, finding much that was new and inter- 
esting, as you shall see some day. Just as I 
reached the shore, I heard the triumphant shouts 
of the eight who had gained the top, and pres- 
ently returned in varying stages. They all gave 
such vivid accounts of the dangers from snow 
and precipices, that I was consoled for having 
turned back. The captain and Dr. Strong came 
laden with flowers and stones from the summit, 
which they poured into my lap as I sat in the 
boat ; and we rowed back to the steamer singing 
"While we go sailing round Norway." Then 
the " Michael Krohn " put out a little farther, and 
anchored for fishing. Several large cod were 
caught. Whenever the captain hooked a fish, he 



IN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. 87 

would call one of us ladies to pull it in, that we 
might seem to be having good luck ; and thus he 
won our hearts more and more. You will trem- 
ble for us when I add that he is only thirty-one, 
and, as far as we know, unmarried. 

By this time it was five o'clock, and as the 
doctor and the others are to leave us at Ham- 
merfest, where we were due at seven, it was voted 
not to go to bed at all. Annie and Thora Rosen 
went below to lie down awhile ; but Margaret and 
I had been drinking coffee, and were very wide 
awake, so stayed on deck with Mr. Rosen and 
the others, and the time passed cheerfully in 
singing, reciting poetry, and relating adventures. 

We are still several hours from Hammerfest. 
It is more beautiful than ever, and much less cold. 
They say we have had an unusually quiet time 
crossing this stretch of open sea. I cannot real- 
ize that I have been up all night. There is no 
time here. It is worse than Washington for that, 
tell Sidney. 

We have breakfast at about ten, dinner at four 
or five, supper at ten again, and never think of 
turning in before midnight. We are feeling sober 
about parting with these pleasant companions ; 
but Dr. Strong we surely hope to see in Boston 



88 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

on our return, and Mr. Murray we may meet in 
Edinburgh. I am afraid you will have trouble in 
reading all this, for the screw makes such jerks 
that I can hardly form the letters. 

There was indeed trouble, Ellen, but not to 
your patient mother, who read with ease the most 
blurred passages. It was Sidney who found, be- 
tween their frank and artless lines, a firmly friendly 
determination to hold him back and show him 
that some one — was it Hugh or was it some one 
of these impertinent strangers — had taken the 
place he had foolishly hoped was his. Why had 
he been so fearful of being precipitate last year? 
Why had he spared her girlish shyness before he 
went to Europe, deceiving himself with the hope 
that she was growing gradually to a knowledge 
of his love, and that, when he returned, absence 
would have taught her to miss him, and he would 
only need to show her his heart, to win hers in 
return? O blindly foolish! Had she not even 
then understood him, and urged his joining his 
family abroad, for the purpose of discouraging 
his advances? He had thought her an uncon- 
scious child ; but it had not been so. Girls were 
born women, it seemed ! She had consistently 
held herself aloof; and the sweet response he had 



IN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. 89 

fondly hoped he read in her shy eyes, faltering 
voice, and fluttering color, in that crowded hour 
last autumn, when she and Harry had met him 
and Jessie on their incoming steamer, was only 
her distress at seeing the more than brotherly joy 
with which he had greeted her. 

Then had come his sister Anna's wedding, and 
he and Ellen had been much together as usher 
and bride-maiden, but always in a crowd ; and she 
had been so lovely in her bridal white that he had 
resolved that not another day should pass, but 
going — had found her weeping over the news of 
Hugh Harley's death, and unable to speak of 
anything else. 

Then had followed his father's alarming illness 
in Washington, calling and detaining the whole 
family there for many weeks. 

Why had he not written ? Half because he was 
jealous of Hugh, half because, if Ellen's love were 
to be his, he wished to see it in her eyes, her 
cheeks, and not on paper. And when Mr. Car- 
ruth's recovery brought them all back to Boston, 
the first news he heard was that his treasure was 
going away with Hugh's sisters ! He saw her 
but once, and how cool and quiet had been her 
farewell ! 

And now — worst of all — he must believe that 



90 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

poor Hugh's shadow had not been between them ; 
but he had let her go away fancy-free, to be 
caught by the first attractive stranger who had 
the sense to appreciate her, and in the kindness 
of her heart she says, rt tell Sidney" and not 
merely the surface joke about happy old times, 
but that " of course she is to meet this paragon of 
doctors again ! " Oh, kindly, cruel little hand, to 
prepare her friend to be utterly supplanted ! 
— and the flimsy foreign sheet was crushed in 
a way that took the young man a long time to 
repair. 



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CHAPTER XI. 

SAILING ROUND NORWAY. 

Ellen* $ Journal. 

In Koenangen Fiord, 

July 3, 188 — , 3 p. m. 

We have been here since three o'clock this 
morning, taking in a thousand barrels of herring. 
We stopped at the extreme end of a long, narrow, 
winding fiord, so narrow that in some places it 
seemed as if our steamer could not find a channel. 

Only very small steamers have come this way 
before ; so whenever we approached a settlement, 
out came men, women, and children in hot haste 
to see the wondrous sight. We passed many 
waterfalls, some mere threads on the mountain 
side, others like masses of falling snow ; and we 
saw one singular river bed with several terraces 
rising on each side. 

It had grown very cold ; but Annie and I sat near 
the funnel, wrapped in a wolfskin coat of the cap- 
tain's. When we came to Koenangen and saw a 
Lapp hut among the birches on shore, we had a 



92 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

wild idea of landing, nipped in the bud by the 
captain ; so we turned in, and, in spite of a donkey- 
engine working over my head, I slept soundly till 
ten. Now the mosquitoes are so thick that I 
must stop writing and put my head under cover. 

Oddvaer, July 5th. 
(On one of the Loffoden Islands.) 

Saturday was foggy and rainy, and after a good 
walk up and down the deck with Mr. Rosen, I am 
bundled up in rugs watching the fog wreaths on 
the mountains, which threaten soon to shroud 
them altogether. Yesterday we did not wake till 
ten, having had a cloudy night; breakfasted at 
noon, and going on deck, found flags flying and 
the stars and stripes on the foremast in honor of 
the day. One of the officers had spent most 
of the night making an American flag, as they 
had none on board. I examined it when they 
took it down; the stars (only twelve!) were cut 
out of cotton and sewed on. The captain shook 
hands with Annie and Margaret and me, and con- 
gratulated us. Sunday was cold and foggy, so 
we had service below, and Mr. Upton gave us an 
excellent sermon ; he also played the piano and 
led the singing of hymns. It was so cold that 
we girls sat close to the leeward side of the 



SAILING ROUND NORWAY. 93 

funnel, piled over with rugs and the wolfskin coat 
on top. 

In the afternoon I put the coat on and went up 
on the bridge, much to the amusement of the 
sailors. The pilot insisted that I was the cap- 
tain, and, taking my hand, made with it the signal 
to the man at the wheel. This morning I was 
awakened at 7.30 by the water pouring in at 
my porthole. They were washing the deck. I 
dressed and ran up, finding the bluest of fiords ; 
and we were stopping at a quaint little fishing 
town. 

I did my best to make a sketch before we 
started again. When I showed it to the captain, 
and asked if he recognized it, he slowly answered : 
" Yes — I know it ; but you have left out one 
house." I thought if I had left out only one, I 
had done well. We reached here at nine; and 
after breakfast the captain took us ashore, one at 
a time, in his punt, and joined us in a stroll. We 
followed the shore, and were soon glad to rest in 
the shade of a rock, the sun was so hot. 

Before us lay the little fishing village, with its 
red, turfed-roof houses, and the narrow channel 
through which our steamer had made her way; 
and all around us were jagged mountains, the 
highest 4,200 feet. We were so charmed with 



94 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

the place that we half wanted to stay till the 
" Michael Krohn " went northward again. Among 
the rocks we found ferns and the lovely Andro- 
meda polyfolia which Linnaeus mentions with 
such affection in his " Tour in Lapland." I rowed 
the captain back, much to his amusement; but 
unfortunately I ran the bow plump against the 
steamer, which took down my pride. We are 
getting under weigh now, having taken in 17,000 
pounds of dried fish. 

Afternoon. 

We stopped again a long time at Hopen, and 
took in barrels on barrels more, and went on 
board the " Johan Schonning," another boat of this 
line; but we much prefer the " Michael Krohn/ 
That night we saw the midnight sun for the last 
time, and more free from clouds than ever before, 
the kind captain going out of his course to give 
us a favorable view of it. 

July 7th. 

Yesterday was windy and rainy ; but we stayed 
on deck, well wrapped and well amused, for the 
newspaper correspondent recited Scotch ballads 
(he is a Scot), told Norse legends, quoted 
Lowell, and narrated anecdotes of Coleridge 
and the Kingsleys, whom he personally knew. 

He is going to send us copies of his letters 




g 

D 

O 

CO 



(73 






SAILING ROUND NORWAY. 95 

about this trip, and they are sure to be good ; 
but I hope you will still value mine a little. 

About ten we reached Bjorn, a small town in 
great excitement over its annual fair. We landed 
and walked through the narrow, muddy streets, 
crowded with people, all on pleasure bent. 

You would have laughed, could you have seen 
me and the captain springing from ' stone to 
stone to escape the mud, up hill and down, 
now stopping to look for old silver, and now 
to ask questions. In one place there was a well- 
filled merry-go-round, spinning away to the tune 
of "Die Wacht a,7n Rhein" The peasant cos- 
tumes were not very striking ; but every woman 
wore a kerchief on her head, usually white 
with a colored border, sometimes of embroid- 
ered muslin or lace, but more frequently of ordi- 
nary cotton. Some faces were extremely pretty. 
Altogether it was a most picturesque scene. 

We had supper at midnight, and then sat on 
the bridge with the others, watching a glorious 
sunset, not fading but changing into a still more 
gorgeous sunrise, the red of the first melting and 
glowing into gold, while the hills took on wonder- 
ful successions of color ; those farthest north were 
golden green. Oh, it was unspeakably strange 
and beautiful ! 



96 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

Annie had just given me the Nineteenth Psalm 
to read, as the best expression of the glory of the 
night; and I shall ever after behold this scene 
when I read, " In them hath He set a tabernacle 
for the sun, which cometh forth as a bridegroom 
out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong 
man to run a race. His going forth is from 
the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the 
ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the 
heat thereof." 

We stayed on deck till nearly three, refreshed 
by coffee to keep our poor bodies up to concert 
pitch with our spirits. To-day, we have all been 
writing letters, hoping to reach Throndhjem 
late to-night; and from there they can go by 
train to Christiania. 

We hope to get letters also, which will be 
a joy indeed, as our last American date was 
June 3d. 

The ever-thoughtful captain has telegraphed 
to a friend to get them for us, as we shall arrive 
after the office is closed. Now for a few hours 
of sleep. 

The eleventh of July found our girls on land 
once more, at Holdt's Hotel, Bergen, where, in 
spite of two weeks of steamer life, they all 



SAILING ROUND NORWAY. 97 

admitted feeling a little homesick for the sea, 
the steamer " Michael Krohn," and the captain. 
Ellen had two dearly welcome letters at Thrond- 
hjem, — one from her mother and one from Amy ; 
but she complained that nobody told her half 
enough of the little home particulars. 

" Do give me details : some of Marion's pretty 
sayings, " she wrote to Harry. "Who inquires 
for me? How is Captain Jerry? Have you shot a 
snowy owl? Did Harvard win at New London?" 

They lost one of their parsons at Throndhjem, 
but were becoming better acquainted with the 
Scotch students and the two Americans, and 
found them very pleasant. 

They reached Christiansund, Thursday: the 
prettiest town they had seen, built on four 
islands, with a narrow sea entrance between. It 
was pretty to see the graceful way in which the 
captain brought in the steamer, swinging round 
into line with a long row of sailing vessels at the 
wharf. The party went ashore and walked about, 
passing a queer old church with a mosque-like 
dome and 1725 on the vane. 

At last they found a silversmith's, and Ellen 
bought quite a large spoon for six kroner, — 
about a dollar and thirty-seven cents. 

The scenery after leaving Throndhjem was less 
7 



98 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

interesting than before. In one place they passed 
near a large rock, and each gentleman was given 
a piece of coal to throw at it. At the first at- 
tempt all fell short, it was so much farther off 
than it looked ; but most of them succeeded the 
second time. 

Nearing Molde, the views became lovely, not 
grand and awful like those within the Arctic 
Circle, but very, very beautiful, — soft blue moun- 
tains with a background of snow-capped ones. 

It was after midnight, and very cloudy and 
dark, when they reached Molde, and the captain 
sent up Roman candles and golden rain with 
charming effect. As if in response, a bridal pro- 
cession came singing down to the shore as they 
were leaving, and the captain gallantly set off 
more fireworks, and the steamer departed amid 
the waving of many handkerchiefs. 

All this festivity delayed breakfast till twelve, 
after which all hurried on deck to see the cliffs 
of Hornelen, which rise two thousand four hun- 
dred feet directly from the water. In some 
places their faces are as smooth as if cut with a 
knife. The Scots compared the vistas of hills 
here, and the winding fiords, to their own loch 
country, though on a larger scale. 

A succession of showers greeted the approach 



SAILING ROUND NORWAY. 99 

to Bergen; and scores of gulls followed the 
steamer, swooping for the bits of hardtack 
thrown them, uttering their hoarse cries. 



Ellen's Journal. 

We turned in before reaching our pier, and, 
coming on deck before six next morning, found 
more rain, in spite of which we lost our hearts, at 
first sight, to the quaint old town, its red roofs 
clustered at the bases of its seven hills, the houses 
looking fairly toy-like beside the grandeur of 
their mountain framing. Very soon a man came 
on board with a note for Mr. Rosen, saying that 
our rooms were engaged; and we bade a sad 
farewell to our devoted captain and were rowed 
ashore. 

It was lively work threading our way through 
a maze of flying boats, large and small, scudding 
steamers, and puffing tugs ; but all too soon we 
were in a prosaic carriage, our eyes alert for silver- 
smith shops, furriers, and carved-wood dealers. 
So many of our fellow-passengers dropped in to 
breakfast, that we felt quite " Michael Krohn-y," 
and the next duty was to go with them to select 
the marine glass for our Captain Bjornstadt. We 
had money enough for a binocular and a small 



100 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

telescope, and sent several on board from which 
he was to choose. 

We three girls were then going back to our 
hotel, when we spied a case of old silver, and go- 
ing in at the nearest doorway, squeezed through 
a passage so narrow that we had to go edgewise, 
arriving at last in a kitchen where bowls of cream 
stood curdling on a stove, and beyond that was 
a sitting-room with one or two show-cases and an 
old man with spectacles and a black skull-cap. 
Such a funny figure ! On our asking for gamle 
solv, he brought out some very handsome rings 
and one or two pins and clasps. I bought a fasci- 
nating pin with gilt dangles, and each of the girls 
bought rings. Thora Rosen understands how to 
bargain with these people; so we paid a krone 
less for each than the man at first asked. 

These streets are dangerously tempting. We 
had hardly escaped Scylla, when we fell into Cha- 
rybdis and bought more rings, and then shut our 
eyes resolutely and fled to our hotel. A brother 
of Mr. Rosen soon called and welcomed us kindly 
to Bergen. In the afternoon his daughter came 
and took us to drive, and invited us to dinner. 
We spent the rest of the morning sitting out on a 
charming balcony surrounded by flowers, study- 
ing, and trying to sketch the quaint houses and 
the passers-by. 



SAILING ROUND NORWAY. IOI 

Our drive was delightful in spite of several 
showers, which are a Bergen specialty. We are 
told that the mean temperature of the whole year 
is 45 Fahrenheit, and even in winter it rarely 
falls below fifteen ; but the average rainfall is 72 
inches, that of Christiania only 20 ! Our even- 
ing with the Rosens was very pleasant. Miss 
Anna speaks English well, but very shyly. One 
of her sisters was named Inga. After dinner we 
took another drive, and had another shower, but 
persevered, winding up beautiful hills, and fol- 
lowing branches of the fiord, and finally leaving 
the carriage and climbing steeps fairly blue with 
harebells. 

One charming custom here is to put turf on 
top of the stone walls, so that they are often 
waving with ferns, grasses, and daisies. The air 
was sweet with newly mown hay drying on the 
fence-like frames they use here. With so much 
rain, I suppose it would never dry on the ground. 
At last we reached our destination, a farm of 
the new Mr. Rosen's, far, far up among the 
mountains, but with still higher steeps beyond. 
The view through long vistas of hills to red- 
roofed Bergen, and in another direction over a 
fiord dotted with islands and out to the open sea, 
was poetically beautiful. 



102 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

Margaret made all laugh by exclaiming. " No 
wonder Ole Bull was born here, and all those 
poets the guide-book told about ! " 

We had supper with these hospitable Rosens 
on returning from this expedition, and were really 
ashamed of our appetites. It was a blow on 
reaching our hotel, to find that Mr. Upton and 
Mr. Vose had left for the Hardanger Fiord in our 
absence. 

This morning the Bergen-Rosen girls came and 
took us to walk. It was raining of course ; but off 
we went to the Museum, and feasted our eyes 
upon gold ornaments and beautiful old wood 
carvings, church doors, cabinets, beds, and a 
desk which it broke my heart not to get for 
Cousin John. 

We rejoiced to see some rings just like those 
we had bought, and there was a fine altar-piece 
in carved oak, with wings, said to be of Cologne 
workmanship, of the sixteenth century. 

The old tankards and drinking horns would 
have made your mouth water, and the china — 
but I forbear. 

We are talking with the Bergen-Rosens about 
making up a party with us for the Hardanger 
Fiord next week ; and the father has already en- 
gaged a courier, and is to send his own carriage 



SAILING ROUND NORWAY. 103 

to meet us when we leave the steamer, so we shall 
travel " en prince." 

The sun is actually trying to shine ; but I fear 
that precedent will be so much against him that 
he will be discouraged. 

In spite of all these clouds, the people here are 
remarkably cheerful and lively ; and I have felt as 
merry as a grig ever since I came. Do you 
suppose it is the exhilarating effect of so much 
ammonia in the incessant rain ? I offer the sug- 
gestion to Cousin John as the basis of an article 
for the " Pop. Sci." 

Tell dear Dr. Bonney that one of his gold 
pieces is going into this Hardanger excursion, and 
another in old spoons, one of which (you need n't 
say) is for Mrs. Bonney. 

To-morrow we drive again with these dear 
Rosens, and go up the Bolstad Fiord in a little 
steamer. This afternoon we plan a prowl among 
the shops. You see we keep busy ; but the air is 
so fine we are never over-tired. I never felt better 
in my life ; and Margaret does not dare to be 
weighed any more, she is so afraid that she is gain- 
ing. Even Annie is getting rosy, and has learned 
to laugh again, and to sleep soundly at night. 

It would please you to see how kindly the 
people here feel towards Americans. 



CHAPTER XII. 

BERGEN. 

Mid-July found Ellen and her companions still 
in merry-moisty Bergen ; and for a few days the 
hills put off their veils, and blue skies and clear 
sunshine prevailed. 

Their new friends, the Rosens of Bergen, spared 
no pains to make their stay pleasant. A second 
dinner with them was followed by a second 
excursion to their hill farm, which was doubly 
attractive in fair weather. 

The next day our five travellers and three of 
the Rosen cousins embarked at six in the morning 
on a little steamer bound for a narrow water-way 
called Bolstad Fiord. The weather was fine as 
they puffed away from the wharf, soft misty streaks 
upon the hills the only traces of past showers. 
The view of the town from the harbor was most 
lovely, its red roofs clustered on each side of the 
fiord, and sheltered by the seven hills whose 
names Margaret was reciting, not without stum- 
bling, to her favorite Inga Rosen. 



BERGEN. IO5 

" Sandvigsf jeld, Floif jeld, Ulriken, Levstakken, 
Damsgaardsf jeld, Lyderhorn, and Askefjeld." 

" They are worse than our Elizabeth Islands, 
Cuttyhunk, Naushon, Pennikese, and the rest," 
said Ellen, when the lesson was over; "you 
might tell Inga of them in return ; but, oh, dear ! 
how those mists are creeping down again ! " It was 
even so. A soft fog curtain was descending over 
the picturesque landscape, gradually enveloping 
town, hills, and mountains, and hugging the steamer 
closely, save when now and then a thin place in 
its folds would reveal tantalizing glimpses of dis- 
tant heights, golden in sunlight and backed with 
blue skies. 

" It will not last ; have no fear," said Anna 
Rosen ; and as they were now summoned below 
to breakfast, Ellen cheerfully remarked that it 
was quite as well not to have to leave too lovely 
a landscape for the baser joys of the table. And, 
sure enough, when they came on deck after a 
hearty meal, the mists had dispersed entirely, and 
the world seemed all the fairer for their fears. 

" Dear little Bergen," said Annie Harley, as a 
twist in the winding fiord hid it from view, " can 
it be only a week since we first saw you from the 
'Michael Krohn'?" On and on went the little 
steamer, pursuing the fiord on its winding way 



106 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

into the land, now stopping at a settlement of two 
or three houses, then at a manufacturing town 
surprisingly neat and prosperous-looking, and 
then at a wharf where only one house was in 
sight. 

" What do they make here?" asked Ellen, at 
one of the larger towns ; and the captain told her 
" woollen jackets for fishermen, " which she stored 
mentally for her next home letter, wishing that 
she had money or trunk space enough to carry 
back a bale of them to give to Cap'n Jerry and 
her other Cape Cod friends. 

Mr. Rosen meanwhile had been gathering infor- 
mation too, and presently came to impart it to 
the girls. 

" They tell me that a railroad is being built 
along the shores of this fiord, from Bergen to 
Voss," he began. " How does that strike you 
by way of courageous enterprise? Could you 
Americans do more?" 

" No, indeed ! " cried they all. " Why, where 
is there level enough for even a beginning, much 
less a going on? " 

"It is indeed a succession of tunnels," said 
Mr. Rosen ; " the openings are the exception, the 
tunnels the rule ; and fifty men were killed during 
the first fifty miles." 



BERGEN. 107 

" Oh, how terrible ! " said Annie. " How can it 
be wise to carry on a work so difficult and so 
dangerous, when there is so little traffic, and 
Nature has given this fiord to travel upon and 
carry freight ?" 

" And not rocks alone to contend with," said 
Ellen, " but all these streams to cross. Just look 
at that one tearing and tumbling and roaring 
down into the fiord ! And we have passed a 
dozen such ; would not they have to be bridged, 
and would that not be very expensive? " 

" Certainly," said Mr. Rosen; " but think of all 
the tourists who will patronize the road, to say 
nothing of the produce of these rich farms and 
marble quarries which can then go swiftly to 
market." 

" Oh, who would choose a railroad when there is 
a steamer to be had ! " cried Margaret. " Who 
had not rather glide softly around these wonderful 
bends, than go screaming through choky smoky 
tunnels?" 

" People who have but a week or two to see all 
Norway," answered her sister, quietly. " Every- 
body is not as idle and as fortunate as we are ; 
and do you not remember finding the railroad 
through Crawford Notch quite as picturesque as 
the old stage route ; and how glad Hugh was to 
go so quickly and smoothly? " 



108 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

" And how many people prefer the railroad up 
Mt. Washington, to the bridle-path or the stage," 
added Ellen ; " but all the same I rejoice that we 
are on the water, and have plenty of time to go 
sailing through lovely Norway. How exquisite 
the view is just here ; and how comical it is to be 
on salt water, and yet far inland and close to 
woods and pastures and cottages all the time ! " 

The hours went sunnily on till three o'clock 
brought them to Bolstadtsoren, the end of the 
fiord; and after a brief stop, they turned and 
came back to Garnaes, where the Rosen carriages 
were to meet them. 

Margaret was more than ever glad that they 
were not travelling by rail, when she was told 
that there were nine tunnels between this place 
and the next station. 

As the steamer approached the pier, a waving 
handkerchief informed them that their friends 
were already there; and soon Mrs. Rosen and 
Inga were distinguished, and in half an hour all 
were together and speeding away, amid joyful 
greetings, on their twenty-one mile drive back to 
Bergen. Up-hill and down-dale, beside lonely 
streams and placid lakes, through quaint little 
villages where all the dogs ran out to bark and 
the children to gaze ; on and on they gayly 
rolled. 



BERGEN. 109 

" How lovely this Bergen peasant dress would 
be for a fancy party ! " said Ellen, as they passed 
a group of girls wearing red bodices, white 
waists, embroidered stomachers, and black skirts, 
to which some added a long white apron. " I 
am going to get a photograph of one to send to 
Jessie Carruth. Would she not be captivating in 
it? See that tall girl with her hair rolled with 
red worsted ! It makes a rosy aureole around 
her head ! " 

" That shows that she is unmarried, " said Mrs. 
Rosen; "the married women's head-dress is of 
white cotton stretched over a wooden frame; 
there is one now, at that cottage door." 

" I must have a photograph like that, too," 
said Ellen. 

" How pretty most of the girls here are ! " re- 
marked Margaret ; " and how many have that fas- 
cinating combination of dark eyes with fair hair 
and rosy cheeks ! " She was looking at a peas- 
ant girl as she spoke, but receiving no answer, 
glanced up to realize that both Mrs. Rosen and 
her two daughters could claim her admiration for 
the same charms. 

They were all smiling and blushing at each 
other. 

" Bergen ladies have always been noted for 



110 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

their lovely complexions," said Mr. Rosen of 
Christiania, coming to their aid ; " so perhaps 
the perpetual mists and rains have their compen- 
sations after all." 

And now the beautiful day came to an end in 
the still more delightful evening, and the liveliness 
of the girls was gradually changed to a more 
pensive and dreamy mood, and finally to actual 
drowsiness, for it was midnight when at last they 
returned to Holdt's Hotel, where they gladly 
tumbled into beds and dreams in almost the 
same moment. 

The next day w r as spent in rambling through 
the Bergen shops ; especially did they linger at a 
famous fur store, feasting their eyes on much, and 
buying a little. Ellen chose a muff of eider-down 
for herself, and several pounds of it for pillows 
for Cousin Miranda. Annie Harley secured a 
dark gray squirrel cloak-lining, while Margaret 
and Miss Thora Rosen preferred grebe muffs. 

The next day they bade a reluctant farewell to 
pretty Bergen, their comfortable hotel, and the 
kind Rosens. Their farewell walk was up one of 
the seven hills, by a zigzag road between neat and 
cosy peasant houses, the windows decked with 
white lace curtains and gay with plants; and 
they also visited one of the ware-houses on the 



BERGEN. 1 1 1 

Tydske Brygge or German wharf, unchanged 
since the time of the Hanseatic acceptance of 
Bergen, hundreds of years ago. This part of the 
town was kept entirely distinct, surrounded by a 
wall, and only the members of the league lived 
there. No woman was allowed within their 
limits, and marriage with a native was strictly 
forbidden. 

" Good-bye, dear Bergen," said Ellen, as they 
steamed up the Hardanger Fiord. " Oh, girls, 
don't you hope we shall come again some day ! " 

" Yes, indeed I do," cried Margaret, impulsively. 
" I will make it a condition, if I am ever mar- 
ried, that my wedding journey shall be through 
Norway." 

" That would be easily arranged with Lieutenant 
Bonval," whispered Miss Rosen to the others ; but 
Margaret pretended to be entirely engrossed in 
watching the pretty little villages they were pass- 
ing, nestled at the base of endlessly successive 
mountains, each with its dashing waterfall, its 
fluttering birches, and sombre evergreens. 

As they neared the pier at Eide, two sunburned 
young men came quickly on board, and made 
their way towards our party. 

" Look ! It is Mr. Murray and Mr. McLean ! " 
cried Margaret; and the next moment all were 



112 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

shaking hands with their pleasant North Cape 
comrades, and exchanging accounts of adventures 
met with since they parted. The girls assured 
them that they had missed a great deal in Bergen. 
" The prettiest girls in Norway," Margaret in- 
formed them. 

" Ah, then we have escaped a great danger ! " 
retorted Mr. Murray ; " it is far safer for us to lose 
our hearts to waterfalls and mountain peaks." 

" But the old silver spoons and the furs ! " said 
Ellen. 

" What a mercy to our pockets ! " persisted 
Mr. McLean, gallantly adding, " no, no, we re- 
gret nothing but your company ; " and then the 
bell rang, and with friendliest wishes they parted 
once more. 

" What a pity there are so many nice people 
in the world ! " said Mr. Rosen, " we are always 
bidding them farewell." 

But the girls would not agree to this. 

" Just think," said Ellen, " we have not only 
enjoyed all these pleasant acquaintances at the 
time ; but we shall have the remembrance of them 
as long as we live, and the sorrow of parting is 
soon over." 

" That depends," said Mr. Rosen ; but now they 
were entering the beautiful Sor Fiord, and though 



BERGEN. 113 

night was falling, they lingered on deck another 
hour, enjoying its wild shores in the cool twilight. 
At ten, it was quite dark, and, finding that they 
should not reach Odde before three, Annie went 
down to see what the ladies' saloon might offer in 
the way of rest. 

She soon came back, shaking her head. " It 
is crowded and stuffy and hot. We can never 
sleep there. I shall stay here all night." 

"And so shall I," said Ellen, who, though 
quiet, was always ready for anything new and 
adventurous, especially in the evening ; and very 
soon they had contrived a fairly comfortable 
couch among the bags and bundles on top of the 
saloon skylight, where she and Annie stretched 
themselves, while Margaret and Miss Rosen curled 
themselves on coils of rope in the stern, and all 
secured several hours of sleep. Now and again, 
the hardness of the bed would rouse them ; but 
even when rubbing an aching arm or stretching a 
cramped foot, there would be a happy look at 
the winking stars overhead, a delicious sense of 
freedom in the pure air, and a sigh of content 
that they were still " sailing through Norway." 

Ellen woke as the day dawned, and found the 
heavens overcast with clouds, mountains looming 
darkly around, ghostly streams gliding down their 



114 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

sides from the snowfields, and glaciers on their 
summits. 

She lay still, drinking in the solemn beauty of 
the scene, storing it in her memory for the never- 
forgotten friends at home, and careful not to 
wake Annie, who yet slept. Suddenly a turn of 
her head towards the west gave her the first view 
of something so beautiful that she barely re- 
pressed a cry of wonder and delight. 

Far, far above, seen only in fragments between 
nearer peaks, stretched the great Folgefond 
glacier, which covers the tops of a remoter range, 
and can be seen far out at sea. 

For fifty miles this great mantle of spotless 
snow extends, with an average width of seven 
miles. It covers a plateau from three to five 
thousand feet in height, which rises from the 
Hardanger Fiord on the west, the Aakre Fiord on 
the south, and the Sor Fiord on the east. From the 
latter fiord, which narrows at its upper end to but 
a few hundred yards, the mountain rises almost 
perpendicularly to its greatest height (5,420 ft.), 
and from its main roof-like top descend lesser 
glaciers, like flying buttresses, in every direction. 
Whether glittering in the sunlight, or coldly 
gleaming under the moon-beams, or as Ellen saw 
it now, a cold, vast wall of awful opaque white- 



BERGEN. 115 

ness against a gray sky, it is most solemnly beau- 
tiful and impressive. 

The other girls still slumbered ; and Ellen, ris- 
ing gently to her feet, stood gazing spell-bound, 
alone, hardly breathing in her rapture of surprise 
and admiration. It was like her solitary vigil on 
the North Cape, a moment never to be forgotten. 
At first her mind found no words ; but presently 
the color rushed to her cheeks, her eyes filled 
with tears, and her lips involuntarily breathed: 

" Oh, if Sidney could see this ! " Her heart 
had spoken at last ; and she was as much startled 
as if a real veil had been torn away. Instantly her 
hands covered her face, as if to hide her secret 
from the shaggy hemlocks and splintered rocks 
between which the boat was gliding; and it was 
an actual relief when the other girls awoke and 
broke into cries of astonished admiration. 

Odde, at the southern end of Sor Fiord, was 
now reached, and comfortable rooms found at a 
small hotel. They were small but very clean, and 
had two beds in each. 

" Oh, how good a real bed is after a coil of 
rope !" exclaimed Margaret, as she and Ellen were 
undressing very early that night ; " and to take 
our clothes off and comb our hair respectably." 

" Yes, indeed, " said Ellen ; " but it was worth 



Il6 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

being cramped and stiff to have such a waken~ 
ing;" and then came a recollection, stifled all 
day, which dyed her cheeks, and attracted Mar- 
garet, who chanced to look out from her heavy 
masses of hair at that moment. " I do believe 
you are sunburned, Nelly, in spite of the cloudy 
day," she said. 

After the room was dark, and Margaret asleep, 
Ellen's thoughts would no longer be controlled, 
but rose in rebellion against some inner object- 
ing voice, telling her again and again that it was 
Sidney first and Sidney most, for whom, in each 
ecstasy of enjoyment, her heart had called. In 
vain she strove to believe that her mother was 
the one she would soonest summon to her side, 
her brother or Amy whose sympathy she most 
desired ; that new consciousness repulsed them 
all, and when, as a last resort, she cried shame on 
herself for an unsought preference, the traitorous 
whisper said, " Not so, not so ! He loves you, he 
has always loved you ! " In swift, bewildering 
succession words and looks came back to justify 
her love, to soothe her pride, to thrill her with 
terrifying joy and conviction. But why, why 
had he made no sign? Before she could decide 
this, she was fast asleep. 

They slept late next morning, but woke at last 



BERGEN. 117 

remorseful over lost hours amid such beauty, 
and, as soon as breakfast was over, started with 
Mr. Rosen and a guide, in two wagons, for an 
out-door day. 

" How prosaic to drive after fiord floating ! " 
said Annie, as they were going up a long hill. 

" On that very account I have ordered a lake 
for the next relay," said Mr. Rosen ; and, behold, 
as they gained the summit, a lovely sheet of 
water lay below, clear and green as an emerald 
in the cool shadow of the heights. 

" How perfectly delightful ! " Annie declared, 
with unusual animation in her dark eyes, as 
Mr. Rosen handed her into the boat provided, 
" this is even better than our beloved ' Michael 
Krohn.' " 

" Treason ! Treason ! " cried Ellen and Mar- 
garet. 

" Oh, you know that steam can never be as 
romantic as oars or sails ! " 

" But throw in Captain Bjornstadt and the 
scale turns, hey?" said Mr. Rosen. 

All too soon the lake was crossed ; and, behold, 
another change, for here were ponies. 

" Oh, this is best of all ! " cried Margaret, as 
she sprang nimbly into her saddle. " How de- 
lightful to be on horseback once more ! " 



Il8 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

" And how sure-footed and wise-like they are ! " 
said Ellen. " I am not guiding mine at all. He 
is taking the whole responsibility of this rocky 
path." 

" He knows that you are a tourist, and feels a 
national pride in having you give your whole 
mind to the scenery of his beautiful land," said 
Mr. Rosen. 

" How comfortable these cloth-covered saddles 
are ! " said Annie ; " much better than those we 
had at Mt. Desert, Margaret." 

Their path lay close to the edge of a stream 
that came dashing down from the glacier, cold 
and gray, but bordered by the greenest of grass 
and the bluest of bluebells. 

Ellen slipped off her pony, and gathered 
enough for belt bouquets for her friends, and a 
few for her little pocket-press; and before she 
remounted, spied some great spikes of deeply 
pink foxgloves which were even more irresistible. 

"Do you remember the spray in Landseer's 
'Twins'?" said Annie, as Mr. Rosen amiably 
filled two of his pockets with great bunches 
rolled in some of the dozen handkerchiefs which 
the girls declared he always carried for possible 
emergencies. 

" One of my strongest foxglove associations is 



BERGEN. 119 

with Sarah Tytler's story of ' The Bride's Pass/ " 
said Ellen ; " but I believe they were white ones 
that decided the heroine's fate." 

And now they were so near the glacier that 
even the ponies were given up, and a short rough 
scramble on their own feet, carried the travellers 
to the very throne of the ice king. Over huge 
rocks and earth deeply ploughed by the tremen- 
dous force of the ice, they struggled up to a 
little stony hillock, and stood silent before the 
majestic presence, looking up beyond the blue- 
ness of the nearer ice masses, over the gray of 
the middle distance, to the pure whiteness of the 
snowy tops that seemed to melt away into the 
mists which hung over all. But no words could 
really describe the wonderful color of that glacier. 
" No blue cavern of Capri was ever bluer than 
these ice grottos. Clear, transparent cobalt 
toward the edge, and deepest Prussian in the 
innermost recesses," so Ellen tried later to 
convey some idea of its magical beauty to her 
Cousin Miranda, who had taught her to sketch. 
At the moment words were felt to be useless; 
and, after a long survey, they turned and looked 
down the valley, past picturesque farmhouses, at 
whose side a mountain torrent fell in clouds of 
spray to the emerald green lake, beyond which 



120 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

rose mountains again, in varying shades of blue. 
It was all wonderful. Close to the glacier were 
fields of barley and wild roses growing luxu- 
riantly; but the guide now hurried them back to 
their ponies, who picked their way so carefully 
and surely down the splintered rocky path, that 
even Annie felt no fear, though a mishap would 
there have been most serious. 

When they reached the village, the women 
were sitting about in picturesque groups in their 
Sunday best, — red bodices, embroidered stom- 
achers, dark skirts, and wonderful caps. 

After a short rest, they took boat again, and 
were rowed back to the wagons, each of which 
held two besides the driver, and had a most pecu- 
liar side-to-side motion which made poor Annie 
too sick to enjoy the scenery, though she strug- 
gled bravely not to dishearten the others. Mr. 
Rosen and his daughter were in the stol-kjcerre 
with her; and the former, not noticing her pallor, 
was imparting some interesting tatistics on the 
subject of the advance of the Folgefond which he 
had collected for their benefit. 

"Two hundred and fifty feet, in 1870, and no 
less than twelve feet in one week in 1871," he 
assured them. 

11 Wonderful ! terrible ! " murmured poor Annie, 



BERGEN. 121 

gladly taking a strong sniff of the smelling salts 
which Miss Rosen offered with silent sympathy. 

Margaret and Ellen meanwhile were so far 
ahead with the guide as to have no suspicion of 
her suffering, and enjoyed to the uttermost the 
ten-mile drive through an ever-narrowing valley, 
coming at last to their object, the Laatefos, — a 
most beautiful waterfall formed by two streams 
which came thundering down over the rocks in 
clouds of foam and spray, to unite near the road, 
then rush away under it through an arched bridge. 

" I have no words left, have you, Ellen? " asked 
Margaret, when they had first been blinded by the 
spray, and then made dizzy by looking up the 
cliffs, which rise two or three thousand feet on one 
side of the road, the river rushing swiftly on the 
other, and the road-way itself cut out of the solid 
rock. 

" Words and pencils would seem almost pro- 
fane," sighed Ellen ; " but, oh, let us be thankful 
that we can buy photographs of such unspeakable, 
unsketchable places as this ! " 

An inn, a little farther on, furnished them with 
refreshing coffee; for " such draughts upon one's 
powers of admiration are as exhausting as skating 
or tennis," as Margaret declared, and Annie's 
headache was much relieved thereby. 



122 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

The next morning was less ecstatically spent 
in exploring Odde, which they found to consist 
of some two dozen houses and a church. 

Making friends with one of the peasant women, 
she invited them into her best room, and showed 
them her store of homespun blankets and gar- 
ments, carved chests, a bedstead built into the 
wall, and the silver ornaments she had received as 
a bride. 

At noon they took the boat back along the 
lovely SSr Fiord till it rejoins the wide Hardanger 
Fiord. This they crossed, landing at Eide, on its 
northern shore, about four o'clock. 

" Behold the ever-faithful ! " said Mr. Rosen, 
as Murray and McLean stepped forward to hand 
the ladies ashore. Mr. Murray, as usual, was soon 
beside grave Annie, whose dark eyes and dignified 
manners had long ago made her his favorite, while 
his friend gayly led the others to some benches he 
had arranged in a neighboring hay-field, with a 
little refreshment of cakes and coffee, of which 
they cheerfully partook while waiting for the 
carriages to pursue their journey. 

" It is just like a picture on a Watteau fan," 
declared Margaret, as the three gentlemen passed 
the cups, and then reclined upon the hay-heaps at 
their feet. 



BERGEN. 123 

She was not unlike a pretty shepherdess herself, 
having brightened her dark gray flannel suit with 
bunches of wild roses ; and Ellen was even prettier 
in blue, with a bright bordered Norwegian neck- 
erchief as a fichu, and another twisted Havelock- 
wise over her hat. 

All too soon the carriages were ready, and they 
rolled away, leaving the friendly Scots waving and 
calling, "Au revoir — Edinburgh," as they took 
the road to Vossevangen. A charming way it 
proved, climbing up and up among the hills, follow- 
ing the courses of streams, through spicy smelling 
woods of pine and fir, then down the other side till 
they gained their inn at ten, with hearty appetites 
for the excellent supper awaiting them. 

The next morning was what Margaret called a 
providential letter-day ; for it rained in such tor- 
rents that walking was not to be dreamed of; and 
pens flew fast all the forenoon. Consciences were 
much relieved when, at one o'clock, they started 
for Gudvangen, leaving their letters to the slow 
course of Vossevangen postal facilities. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

VESTRE SLIDRE. 

The last week in July found our three girls again 
with Mrs. Erlsen, comfortably settled in her sum- 
mer retreat among the mountains at Vestre 
Slidre, in the Valders district. 

The journey from Vossevangen was delightful ; 
but minds and bodies were both glad to rest after 
many hours of incessant enjoying and admiring, 
" on one ecstatic tiptoes," as Margaret said. 

The weather had been wonderfully clear and 
bright ever since the morning they left Vossevan- 
gen; then it poured for two hours, and water- 
proofs and umbrellas rather dimmed the glories 
around them ; but on reaching Opheim, where 
they stopped for coffee, it began to clear, and 
only the mountain-tops were veiled. 

Beyond Opheim, they came through magnifi- 
cent scenery in the Nsero Valley, the descent to 
which is by sixteen or eighteen zigzags, with a 
beautiful waterfall on each side of the ravine in 
which they came down. 



VESTRE SLIDRE. 125 

" Unceasing thunder and eternal foam." The 
spray and mist from one rises to the very top of 
the mountain. The girls walked down this part 
of the road eating wild strawberries. 

" If it were not for these fleshly joys, I fear we 
should fairly soar away on the wings of aesthetic 
rapture/* said Ellen. 

First, they would stop to look at one cascade, 
as the road bent that way, and then at the other, 
as it curved again. Down in the valley, the wild 
waters met ; and they drove beside the new stream, 
under the shadow of mountains some of which 
were five thousand feet high. 

Many had domelike summits, and between 
them waterfalls came tumbling apparently from 
the sky. 

The water was very clear, the stones beneath it 
white, the road white too, and wherever there had 
been a recent slide, or where spring freshets had 
brought down fresh stones, there were white 
patches. It made Ellen think of Mark Twain's 
account of the glare of Bermuda walks, where it 
gave him a refreshing sense of shade and coolness 
to meet a colored man and his shadow. 

Reaching Gudvangen at nine in the evening, the 
travellers found only a few miserable huts and two 
or three painted houses, which were the hotels. 



126 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

To their dismay, they were told that all the 
rooms were taken. The family, however, kindly 
offered to give up their own, which was grate- 
fully accepted ; but when the girls went in, their 
noses were assailed by such a combination of dis- 
agreeable odors, that they walked out as fast as 
possible, and begged permission to sleep on the 
parlor floor. The people nobly forgave their 
contempt for the rooms, and made two beds, one 
on the floor, where Annie and Ellen did their best 
to sleep, while Miss Rosen and Margaret were 
equally uncomfortable on a combination of a sofa 
with a row of chairs ; and poor Mr. Rosen betook 
himself to some shed. 

Before nightfall, they had all taken a stroll 
through the village, and were greatly impressed 
by three old women whom they saw in one little 
house. They were as weirdly ugly as Macbeth's 
witches. 

They were also shown a huge rock behind the 
hotel which had fallen from the cliff above, some 
months before, and now forms a cool cave where 
they keep milk, etc. 

" A few feet more, and where would the house 
have been?'' said Annie. 

All were abroad early next day, as you may 
suppose, and took another ramble with Mr. 



VESTRE SLIDRE. 1 27 

Rosen, who looked jaded indeed. When asked 
as to his night's rest, he shrugged his shoulders 
and said, " You see me here ; it is enough, let 
us forget the past." In the course of this walk 
they saw a house, or hut rather, with 1782 over 
the door. Within was a room not more than ten 
feet square, the door so low that even Ellen must 
have stooped to enter ; but she had no such desire. 
The whole village was malodorous; but Annie 
and Ellen each made a pretty sketch, for even 
these turf or red roofed hovels made a charming 
water-color, wedged in between grand cliffs and 
steeps of brown rock, or soft green herbage, or 
exquisite shadings of violet and blue on the more 
distant slopes. 

But no one was sorry to leave on the steamer 
for Laerdal ; and after enjoying for a while the 
narrow fiord winding through very steep cliffs, 
fatigue overcame them, and they slept profoundly 
in the cabin. 

One of the beautiful peaks which they saw, 
as they came down the zigzags of the Nserodal, 
was Jordalsnut, three thousand six hundred feet 
high, and composed of pale gray felspar. 

Reaching Lserdal at four, they were shown to 
delightfully clean rooms, but even there suffered 
as usual from large and numerous fleas. Mr. and 



128 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

Mrs. Erlsen were awaiting them, and " You may 
imagine," wrote Ellen, in her journal letter, " how 
homelike and delightful it was to see their bright 
faces beaming welcome. 

"The next morning we all started together 
in two carriages, the ponies climbing steadily, 
patiently, up and up, hill after hill ; clear cold 
rivers rushing down to meet us, so clear that 
we could see fish lurking in their pools. Oh, 
how Cousin John would have been tempted to 
stop ! 

" The valley was fertile and the grain golden ; 
but the hills above were utterly bare and rocky. 
We stopped several times for lunch and dinner, 
and to rest the horses; and each time met an 
English couple, a Mr. and Mrs. Ford, who were 
very pleasant. 

" We found silver ornaments and carved spoons 
for sale at each station ; and I bought two of the 
latter, which was great moderation, as I would 
have liked a dozen. We saw one beautiful tan- 
kard for seventy-five dollars; and there were 
some very odd candlesticks, which we resisted 
only because it was so impossible to carry them. 

" At Maristuen, we were on the Fille Fjeld ; and 
from there to Nystuen, where we spent the night, 
we were really on the mountains, snow lying not 



VESTRE SLIDRE. 1 29 

far from us, and the only trees being a silvery 
green mountain willow and the dwarf birch. 

" Near Maristuen, we passed a saeter, and saw 
many cows, sheep, goats, and horses. These last 
two stations are established by government for 
the convenience of travellers, and men are paid 
to live there. 

"At Nystuen, there were three long narrow 
buildings parallel to the valley, as otherwise they 
could not withstand the violence of the winter 
tempests. 

" Here we had good rooms and a nice supper, 
principally of fish, as most meals here are, wind- 
ing up with some of the goodies which Mrs. 
Erlsen had sent to Laerdal. 

" The Fords were there too, and we had a jolly 
time with a due number of ' skaals.' Then we 
walked by the lake by the light of a full moon ; 
the air delicious, though cold, for we are three 
thousand feet above the sea. 

" The pigs here are very funny, with long tails 
curling along their backs, and their ears looking 
like large curled wigs. Margaret is sketching 
one, but having so hard a time with such a rest- 
less subject that I think I shall not attempt it. 

" But to return to our journey. We started 
early next morning, hoping to reach Fagernaes by 

9 



130 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

eight in the evening, and there meet the Erlsens. 
This day's driving was all down-hill, so we made 
good speed and arrived at our dining-place about 
two. As we drove up to the station, we beheld a 
familiar group by the roadside, and, staring in 
bewildered joy, recognized Mrs. Erlsen's lit- 
tle maid, Henrik, and Ingeborg in her baby- 
carriage. 

" We tumbled out of our carioles, and rushed 
towards them, and soon learned that they had 
come from Fagernaes that morning, having heard 
that they could be accommodated at the parson- 
age here; and they were already comfortably 
established. 

" The parsonage is a large white house sepa- 
rated from the main road by a garden full of 
roses. The pastor died this summer; but his 
widow and six daughters consented to take 
boarders as usual. 

" Annie is there with her sister ; but Margaret 
and I are at the station hotel, having a large airy 
room, though not very clean. 

" The Rosens left us to-day, hoping to meet us 
again in Christiania. Our windows look on a 
lovely lake, with wooded islands, and hills all 
around, those to the northwest wearing patches 
of snow, which remind us of the beautiful north- 



VESTRE SLIDRE. 131 

land, which I at least constantly long to see 
again. 

" The pastor's family are very pleasant, and we 
are with them much of the time ; but we miss the 
Rosens sadly. 

" Annie and I went to church, and were much 
interested. The building is of stone, white- 
washed within ; windows only at one side and 
end ; no ornament except the altar and a sort of 
choir screen separating the chancel from the 
body of the church. These were elaborately 
carved and beautifully painted. The pastor wore 
first a white and then a black gown, and an 
Elizabethan ruff. The singing was by the con- 
gregation, very slow and melancholy, led by one 
or two men inside the screen. The altar w r as 
very Romish looking, with a crucifix and candles 
lighted for a christening, which followed the 
sermon. 

" The congregation consisted principally of 
peasants, the men sitting on one side, the women 
on the other, the latter with kerchiefs of many 
colors. A girl in front of me wore a cotton one 
printed with Kaulbach's ' Lili ' ; but most of the 
designs were flowery. 

"The church walls, nearly five feet thick, made 
the windows look prison-like. I could understand 



132 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

the Lord's Prayer, and part of the New Testament 
reading, but little else. The vane on the steeple 
bears the date 1706; and that reminds me to tell 
you of a wonderful old church we saw at Bor- 
gund, on our way here, which in the scroll-work 
of its klock-stapely or belfry, has the date 1133. 
It is remarkably well preserved, but is not used 
now, services being held in a new edifice near by, 
the old one being the property of the Antiquarian 
Society of Christiania. Here again we noticed 
that strange impress of the East, which is con- 
stantly amazing us in this northern land. The 
archways over the doors are carved in scroll- 
work almost exactly like what we see in pictures 
of mosques in Cairo ; the walls, as well as the 
roofs, are shingled ; and the outside effect is like 
a card-house, one roof above another, many 
gables, and each ending in a curly prolongation, or 
dragon's head, decidedly Japanesque, — or is it 
Byzantine? There is a narrow, cloister-like walk 
all around outside; one door is very high and 
elaborately ornamented with entwining snakes, 
and over another is a Runic inscription. Inside, 
it is very dark, the windows are so few and small ; 
but the pillars look as strong at if set up yester- 
day. Who built it, or why, in this remote little 
valley of few houses, we cannot learn. I have 




OLD BORGUND CHURCH. 



VESTRE SLIDRE. 1 33 

bought a photograph of it ; for my words cannot 
make you understand how quaintly curious it is. 

" There is one somewhat like it in Thelemarken, 
and there was a third which was carried to Ger- 
many. The new one at Borgund is a half imita- 
tion of the original. The bell towers are almost 
always separate structures, another resemblance 
to Southern countries. ,, 

July 27th. 

This is a very pretty place, but we feel even 
more out of the world than we did at the North 
Cape; for though telegraph wires stretch over 
our heads, there is no telegraphic station within 
two days' journey ; and we have but two mails a 
week. I fancy I hear Cousin John say, " How 
delightful ! " 

This house is shockingly dirty. Pigs, geese, 
and dogs running about the yard, and, alas ! 
smaller life within ; but there are pleasant people, 
— a Swedish baroness and two daughters, one of 
whom speaks English ; another Swedish lady and 
her daughter, a pretty blonde who dresses in 
pink and wears conch-shell ornaments. This 
evening she plucked up courage to say a few 
words to me in English. 

Then there is a Miss Nordenskjold, related to 
the Arctic explorer. You see we are quite a la 



134 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

New England summer boarding-places, in our 
feminine majority. Miss Nordenskjold started 
this afternoon on horseback, on a queer saddle 
like an arm-chair, to go with a daughter of the 
house to a sseter, two and a half Norwegian miles 
from here ; but as it soon began to rain, I fear her 
trip will be far from pleasant. 

We have also two or three young men, who 
bow politely, but say nothing. 

Yesterday the Harleys and their sister and I 
walked up to a sunny hillside, and lay a long time 
flat in the grass, watching the ever-changing lights 
and shadows on the opposite hill, and the lake 
below, which is called Strandefiord. It seems to 
me that I love you all better than ever, now that 
I am so far away. 

Good-bye — do write often to your absent 

Ellen. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

SIDNEY. 

AMONG the rainy day letters which our travellers 
left to be mailed at Vossevangen was a little 
package for Jessie Carruth, containing two col- 
ored photographs, — one of a pretty Bergen peas- 
ant girl in her holiday costume, and one of a 
married woman with her quaint head-dress. 

It happened (if anything does merely happen) 
that Jessie opened it at the breakfast-table, and 
that, for a wonder, she was early enough to find 
Sidney still in the room. 

Perhaps he had noticed a foreign stamp in the 
pile of mail matter beside her plate, and lingered 
over his newspaper on that account. If so, he 
preserved his patience admirably, while she tore 
open half-a-dozen envelopes in the intervals of 
coffee and chops, commenting on each, in her 
usual lively fashion, to her mother opposite. 

" How perfectly absurd of Leila Gray to be 
married in August ! " she cried. " Does she really 
think that any one in their senses is coming up 



136 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

from the seashore to simmer through a noon-day 
wedding and reception ! I shall not even send a 
wedding present to such an inconsiderate thing ; 
would you, Mamma?" 

" It is just possible that Ben Brown cannot 
take a vacation at any other time," responded 
Mrs. Carruth, placidly. 

"And here is Marjorie Monks quite as bad," 
pursued Jessie, tossing down the pale-blue billet 
and opening a green one. "Think of her au- 
dacity in asking me to come in fancy dress to a 
lawn party on the tenth, for the benefit of the 
Fresh Air Fund ! When it 's all I can do to keep 
good-natured at home in my coolest tea-gown, 
and to struggle down to the beach at bathing- 
time." 

" Perhaps Marjorie remembers that there are 
hundreds of girls who never had a cool tea-gown, 
or saw a sea-beach," said her brother, gravely. 

" Oh, come, Sidney ! Don't be so painfully 
high-minded in dog-days ! Or, if you 're made so, 
and can't help it, just give me five dollars to send 
to Marjorie, and that '11 make everybody happy. 
Now that you 're a regular partner in papa's law 
firm, I know you must have more than you know 
what to do with, and you have n't even taken a 
vacation this summer." 



SIDNEY. 137 

"Why haven't you, dear boy?" asked his 
mother, as Jessie returned to her billets. 

" It is very nice having you coming down to 
us every night ; but we don't want to be selfish ; 
and sometimes I fancy you look tired, and as if 
a change would do you good." 

" I believe I am rather stupid," answered Sid- 
ney, with a grateful smile at his mother. " I 
think I shall take a leave soon." 

He had not thought of it before ; but all in a 
moment a great longing possessed him to leave 
clients, courts, and city cares far behind, to get 
away to some cool mountain height, to hear 
the wind rushing among pine branches, to ex- 
plore primeval forests or float on some lonely 
lake at twilight, — ah, how good it would be ! 
Surely thus he might for a time forget a gentle, 
haunting face, conquer this weary craving for that 
low, clear voice, and be himself once more ; and 
yet how much sweeter it would be to enjoy those 
free lonely wilds with her, had that been possible ; 
and just then Jessie's careless fingers tore open 
her last packet and cried out : — 

" From Nelly Marlow ! Look, Mamma ! Look 
at these Bergen peasant costumes ! Are n't they 
charming? Could anything be more opportune? 
I'll go, of course. It'll suit my style exactly; 



138 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

and, with the photograph as a guide, Pauline can 
get it up in no time ; and I '11 make Anna wear 
the matron's dress. I must write to Marjorie at 
once. I believe I can get the ten-o'clock boat if 
I skurry." 

She fell upon her breakfast with celerity, lan- 
guor and heat forgotten ; while her mother smiled 
indulgently, quite accustomed to her volatile little 
daughter's changes of mood. 

" They are certainly very picturesque," she 
said, studying the photographs which Jessie had 
passed over to her. 

" And what is this?" asked Sidney, picking up 
a printed strip which had fallen to the floor. 

" Oh, only some time-table thing ! You 're wel- 
come to it, Sidney. Just like Nelly to put it in. 
She and you are a pair on statistics ! " And she 
fluttered out of the room, looking in a minute 
later to say : — 

" Oh, Sidney, you can give me that five dollars 
all the same ; I shall want it for the stuffs, you 
know. Leave it with the photographs, and, 
Mamma — be sure and give them to me the last 
thing before I go." She was really gone this 
time ; and, Mrs. Carruth being called out by some 
household matter, Sidney was left alone to ex- 
amine his treasure. Treasure it must have been, 






SIDNEY. 139 

for he raised it to his lips ; yet it looked prosaic 
enough, a little eight-page leaflet, hardly as long 
as his hand, with these words on the outside : — 

Summer Tour 

to the North Cape. 

188— 

The 

Bergen- Nordland Steamship Co/s 

line of steamers between 

Christiania 

AND 

The North Cape 
in June, July, and August, 

Comprising the following first-class steamers, all being 

excellently furnished for the accommodation of 

passengers. 

John Schonning, Jonas Lie, 

Capt. Bentzon. Capt. Falch. 

President Christie, Michael Krohn, 

Capt. Lund. Capt. Bjornstadt. 

Bergen — Norway, 

C. J. Schonning, 

Manager. 

Bergen : 
Printed by H. J. Geelmuyden's Widow, J. A. Ring. 



I40 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

On the back were diagrams of the four steam- 
ers, and — yes — a little pencilled "E," on one 
of the state-rooms of the " Michael Krohn." It 
was almost as if he heard Ellen's footstep ! He 
turned one leaf and read : — 

" There are four routes from England to Nor- 
way in the excellent steamers of Messrs. Wilson 
& Co., first from London to Christiania, on alter- 
nate Thursdays," etc. etc. He perused the whole 
page with close attention, a strong purpose grow- 
ing in his mind with every line. The aimless 
longing of months changed into bold decision 
faster than he read; and when, within the last 
fold of the circular, he came upon a little spray 
of bluebells pressed between two birch leaves, 
his brown eyes flashed with hope, then suddenly 
filled with tears. The next moment, the precious 
pages carefully placed in his pocket-book, he was 
running upstairs, singing under his breath : — 

" He either fears his fate too much, 
Or his desert is small, 
Who dares not put it to the touch 
And win or lose it all." 

As he passed Jessie's door, he tapped, and on 
her answering, " Come in," opened the door far 
enough to twist a five-dollar bill round the head 



SIDNEY. 141 

of a bronze Psyche on her table, and the next 
moment was on his way to the steamer-landing. 

In the course of the day, finding himself alone 
in the office with his father, he inquired : — 

" Would it inconvenience you, sir, if I should 
go away for a month or six weeks? " 

" No, indeed, my boy, you have fairly earned 
it. Another yachting party of Pelham's ? " 

" No, sir, I had thought of going alone to — to 
Norway." Something in his voice made Mr. 
Carruth look up ; their eyes met and held each 
other for an instant, one pair eloquent with earnest 
inquiry, the other with honest assent. Then, as 
a step was heard in the outer room, the father 
quietly said, " You could not please me more; " 
and there was not another word said on the 
subject, then or afterward. Sidney sailed three 
days later ; but, in the mean time, he had spent 
an afternoon at Lotus Bay. When he left the 
train at the little station, he had a choice of 
two ways leading to Professor Willoughby's, — 
the shorter one, a dusty road ; the other, a ram- 
bling footpath through fields, following the curve 
of the shore. He chose the latter, for it was 
full of old-time sunny memories of Ellen. 

It was here, just below this wind-twisted old 
cedar-tree, that he first saw her, playing on the 



142 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

beach with Jessie. A little farther, where the 
brook crosses the pebbly shore, he first spoke to 
her, as she was pacing along alone, singing to 
her doll. How clearly he could recall the half- 
frightened, half-pleased look on her face, and the 
glad surprise with which she accepted his sym- 
pathy when Cecelia Estella (the doll's name 
flashed back into his memory so suddenly that 
he almost laughed aloud) fell out of her carriage 
and grazed her pink waxen cheek on a stone ! 
Harry used to laugh at that doll; but Sidney had 
a finer sense of the owner's feelings; and their 
friendship had begun when he repaired Cecelia's 
face from his best paint-box. Now he comes to 
a pile of rocks which the girls used to call the 
Mermaid's Grotto. Many a pretty shell and 
pebble had he contributed to its decoration. 

Next came the bathing houses, recalling a 
charming picture of recent date, when he had 
surprised Ellen painting her own particular door 
Harvard crimson, and so startled her that she 
had fallen from the tippy saw-horse on which 
she stood, and spattered his cuff with her brush 
as he caught her. That was the day they went 
sailing with Nick Farr, and she had been so firm 
in telling him it was his duty to go abroad with 
his father. What a resolute little creature she 



SIDNEY. I43 

was, with all her gentleness ! How she had re- 
buked him once ! — that was on the Potomac, 
coming up from Mt. Vernon, and he had spoken 
slightingly of Jessie. Should he ever forget the 
two bright tears that rolled down and were lost 
in her muff when she thought he was angry? 
but she stood her ground all the same. In the 
thrill of this memory he walked very fast, and 
soon came to the house, where Mrs. Marlow was 
embroidering in the porch. She greeted him 
cordially, and would have called Mrs. Willoughby, 
who was sketching not far away; but Sidney 
said, " Please don't — I really came to see you ; " 
and as he sat down on the step below her, he 
added, " I came to say good-bye, and to ask your 
good wishes; for I am going to Europe Sat- 
urday." She looked up with friendly interest, 
and something in his eyes held hers as he went 
on : " To Norway — to see Ellen. " Then the 
bright color flew to her cheeks, her eyes fell, and 
her lips trembled ; but she looked so much like 
her daughter that Sidney went on : " I have 
loved her all my life, I think ; but lately I have 
learned that I cannot be happy without her. 
May I tell her so?" For a few moments, Mrs. 
Marlow remained silent, visibly agitated; and 
Sidney was shocked at his own abruptness. He 



144 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

had meant to lead up to his errand gradually ; but 
his beach reminiscences had filled his whole 
mind, and out of the fulness of his heart he had 
spoken. At last she looked up and faltered, 
" Yes, Sidney, you have my full consent. There 
is no one I love and trust more ; but I do not 
know her feelings, and, oh ! she seems still my 
little girl ; I had not thought anything like this 
would come so soon." Her tears flowed freely, 
and Sidney began to feel like a robber. 

" It is true, Mrs. Marlow," he stammered. 
" She is but a child in all innocence and sweet- 
ness ; but I did not dare to wait. Think of all 
these fellows she is travelling with now ! I can- 
not bear it, you see ; I must tell her how I feel at 
least, and — and — you do not know that any one 
else — " he broke off half ashamed ; but she 
understood and answered clearly, " No, Sidney, 
I am sure of that." Then Mrs. Willoughby came 
up, and the rest of the visit was unimportant. 



CHAPTER XV, 



THE S^ETER. 



Ellen's Journal. 

Vestre Slidre, July 28, 188-. 
We have just come in from a walk in fields full 
of flowers : bluebells, daisies, grass of Parnassus, 
and a dark-red strawberry-like flower. Then 
we would come to great patches of juniper, along 
the edges of which grew delicious wild straw- 
berries. Annie made a good sketch of some 
dark-red clover-blossoms, which are very rich in 
color here. I read Norwegian an hour or two 
every day, and analyze and press a few flowers ; 
and then I spend the rest of the day rambling 
about the roads and fields, steeping myself, as it 
were, in the lovely scenery, but longing more 
and more to see again the snowclad mountains 
of the far north, under the bewitching light of 
the midnight sun. The girls say I am under a 
spell ; and indeed my fancy does go back to 
those wildly beautiful places whenever I am 
quiet and alone. 



I46 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

Mother would delight in the horses here, they 
are so gentle and fond of being petted, though 
they will not accept the sugar we offer them. 

July 31st. 

Still at Olken, but in a few days we go back 
to Christiania. We have had several rainy days, 
which we spent in writing and reading and try- 
ing to sketch wild flowers. One fair day we 
made a saeter tour. A saeter is a pasture away 
up on the mountains, where all the cattle are sent 
for the summer, it being easier to send them to 
the grass than to bring the hay down to them, 
besides which these high pastures are too stony 
and marshy to be easily mown. Annie remem- 
bers reading about them in Miss Martineau's 
"Feats on the Fiord;" and I must get it for 
mother. The parsonage family here have a 
saeter, a Norwegian mile from here (about seven 
English miles), on a mountain called Syndin 
Fjeld, from which there is a beautiful view; and 
I was invited to go up there for the day with 
their boarders. The Harleys did not care to 
go, so I found myself in an entirely Norwegian 
party. I was rather scared, but sure that it 
would be all the more new and interesting. We 
started at half -past seven, seven ladies and three 



X 






THE S^TER. 147 



gentlemen an<jl three horses, one horse with well- 
filled panniers, the others with side-saddles to be 
shared between four of us. Of course my great 
trouble was the language ; but I plunged boldly 
into conversation, and talked a shocking mixture 
of Norwegian, German, and English. It really 
would have turned Cousin John gray. 

I managed to make myself understood, and I 
guessed at their replies. One lady spoke Ger- 
man, and several knew a little English, but it 
was all very funny. 

After a short walk on the high road, we were 
ferried across the lake, and the ascent began. 
We had clouds at first ; but they soon parted, and 
we had beautiful sun and shadow on the sur- 
rounding hills, as we went higher and higher and 
could look up and down the valley in which 
is Vestre Slidre, and over its enclosing heights 
to ranges upon ranges of mountains beyond. 
The way was very steep; but we went slowly, 
taking turns on the horses. 

First, we went through cultivated fields, then 
through fir woods, then out upon open moors, 
where the only trees were dwarf birches and a 
kind of willow which grows flat upon the 
ground, and is imbedded in moss and juniper. 

About noon we reached the saeter. There 



V 



148 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

were several log buildings, — one for the saeter 
girls, the others for the animals. I went into 
the former, where several of the party were 
already eating and drinking. 

A wooden porringer filled with rich milk was 
instantly offered me, and passed from one to the 
other all around. 

Then we sat at a table, in the centre of which 
was a shallow, wooden tub filled with sour milk 
called tyk melk. A wooden spoon was given 
me; and we all dipped in, skimming off the 
cream. It was not at all bad, but a few spoons- 
ful satisfied me. We also had flad-brod and 
musost with nice butter. 

After appeasing my appetite I looked around. 
We were sitting in one corner of a small room 
that took up nearly the whole house. In another 
corner were two beds built into the wall, one 
above the other, like berths, only wider. 

In a third corner was the fireplace. Two sides 
of the house were of stone for about four feet, 
and the floor was of flat stones upon which the 
fire was built. From above, hung a crane and 
/ pot-hooks ; on one of the latter hung a pot in 
which our coffee was boiling. There were two 
windows, each with four small panes of glass, 
and two doors, — one by which we had entered, 



THE S^ETER. 149 

and the other leading into a small room where 
the milk and cheeses are kept. There were 
rows of tubs of all sizes, containing milk in all 
stages of sourness and sweetness. After drink- 
ing our coffee, we started to climb to the top of 
the fjeld, for the saeter house stood in a depres- 
sion beside a lake. 

Alas ! the clouds had come down and entirely 
hidden the distant mountains and even the nearer 
hills. We persisted in going to the top, how- 
ever, and sat there under our umbrellas, eating 
chocolate and gazing at the dreary wastes of 
moorland and the ponds which filled every 
hollow. / 

Herr Musnau, who has a beautiful voice, sang 
for us, and we tried to be cheerful. Then we 
went back to the house and watched the making 
of flode-grod, or cream porridge, which Nor- 
wegians consider a great delicacy. I should call 
it flour gruel made with cream instead of water. 
The milk was boiling away on the fire, stirred 
with a stick ending in five strongly reflexed 
points, like the anchor, called killick. Then 
the flour was scattered in by one damsel, while 
another twirled the stick rapidly between her 
hands. After it had boiled a long time, and the 
fatty part had been skimmed off and pressed out 



150 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

as it separated from the rest, we ate it with 
cream and sugar. It was not bad ; but I could 
not be as enthusiastic as the elder Miss Winsnaes, 
who went into ecstasies over it. Then we had 
more coffee, and more singing and talking and 
laughing. We also fed some of the goats, and 
a cunning little kid that climbed over the gate 
into the barn and came running to us to be 
petted and fed. 

All this time the rain poured down. At six 
we started on our homeward way, despairing of 
clear weather. Nothing could have been wetter 
than the grass and bushes through which we 
walked, except the brooks through which we 
waded. 

It was well that some of the party knew the 
way, for the first part lay across moors crossed 
by many paths, and we might easily have gone 
astray. When we reached the beaten track, two 
of the ladies and I walked on very fast to keep 
warm, and as the road was wholly downhill we 
got over the ground swiftly, though slippery 
rocks often obliged us to be careful. Such drip- 
ping creatures as we were when at nine we 
reached the parsonage ! My boots seemed to be 
made of paper ; and my stockings, which started 
gray, were a mixture of black, green, and brown. 



THE S^TER. ISI 

However, I am none the worse to-day, and my 
clothes came out better than I had dared to 
hope. Although it was a pity to have missed 
the view, which they say is exceedingly fine, I 
had a great deal of fun and enjoyment on the 
trip. 

That little cup mother gave me was much 
admired, and proved very useful. It was used 
for water at the spring, for coffee at the saeter, 
and for cognac on the homeward wade, just a 
thimbleful. 

We are to stay here another week, and I hope 
to make a few sketches. Some of our experi- 
ences here are very funny. I have had a very 
shallow wash-basin, which I sportively called 
the soup-plate. Yesterday it had gone, and a 
very deep bowl replaced it. Margaret laughed 
and said, " You have the tureen instead of the 
plate, that is all." At dessert I nudged her 
and signed to her to look at the pie dish. 

We had seen it before. 

Wednesday, we all received letters and papers, 
— a jubilee, indeed, — and probably the last we 
shall have before we return to Birkengaard. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

BACK TO CHRISTIANIA. 

Ellen's Journal. 

BlRKENGAARD, August. 

We are safely here once more. Our last week 
at Vestre Slidre was too showery for long expe- 
ditions; but it was beautiful to see the rain- 
clouds as they came slowly marching upon us, 
while the sun was still shining. One afternoon 
we had coffee at the Manse Prastegaard, and 
then walked with the party there to a fir-crowned 
cliff that rises on the shore of the lake. After 
sitting sketching and talking awhile in this 
lovely place, we returned to the parsonage, and 
were shown a most beautiful christening robe 
which was nearly two hundred years old. It 
was of silver brocade, lined with rose-colored 
satin, and trimmed with heavy silver fringe. 
There were also a brocaded silver-fringed cap, 
pink swathing band, pillow-case, and satin bib, 
all richly laden with silver fringe. I hoped that 



BACK TO CHRISTIANIA. 153 

the poor baby did not have to wear them very 
often. Another afternoon we drove — Mrs. 
Erlsen in a cariole and we girls in a rickety old 
cart — to the farm of a rich peasant, the richest 
in the district. 

As we approached, we were disappointed by 
finding the same tokens of shiftlessness and dirt 
which characterize all the farms of the region. 
Pigs by the dozen were rooting around in the 
courtyard, and the woman kept us at the door 
while she swept the living-room. Finally, we 
were invited in, and after a few flattering words 
from Mrs. Erlsen, we were shown a few pieces 
of old silver, two fine drinking-cups, and some 
ornaments. Then we were treated to gooseberry 
wine, cake, and preserves. The latter were 
served in true Norwegian peasant style, being 
accompanied by a tumbler of water, in which 
stood many spoons. Each guest was expected 
to take a spoon, dip into the preserve-dish, and 
then wash it in the tumbler. To my regret, 
none of the party approved of this custom, but 
used their cakes as preserve-plates, so I followed 
their example. 

We went upstairs and admired the huge logs 
of which the house was built, and saw some 
nice cloth in the loom, but on the whole were 



154 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

disappointed. There were no signs of great 
wealth or unusual comfort. 

The day before we left, we sketched in the 
morning, dined at the parsonage, and went with 
the whole party to an island in the lake, where 
coffee was made and served with little cakes, 
which were very nice, though made at Whitsun- 
tide. The island was delightful, carpeted with 
beautiful moss and covered with a growth of fir 
and pine. 

After coffee, three or four of us were rowed to 
a tiny island which they call Iceland. It was 
not more than fifteen feet by eight, but had two 
or three little fir-trees, a few birches and alders, 
and a huge ant-hill upon it. The ants swarmed 
over us, driving us to the rocky edge. On the 
lake shore opposite our boarding-place the hills 
are high and precipitous; and as we were look- 
ing at their steep cliffs, one of the gentlemen 
told us a tale of the olden time. In the days of 
St. Olaf, there were many fierce quarrels between 
the King of Valders and the King of the valley 
to the westward. Once the King of Valders 
was overpowered and retreated to his valley. 
His enemy came in pursuit with his horsemen, 
led through the woods and over the hills by a 
peasant guide carrying a lantern. 



BACK TO CHRISTIANIA. 1 55 

As they approached the cliffs, the guide sud- 
denly extinguished his light, and telling them 
that the path led straight on, abandoned them to 
their fate. 

On they rode, and horses and riders plunged 
over the cliffs and were dashed to pieces on the 
rocks below, where to this day horse-shoes and 
bits of harness are to be found. 

Another grewsome tale of these heights re- 
lates that a murderer of one of the kings was 
rolled over them in a barrel filled with spikes. 

The morning after this island picnic, we began 
our journey home to Christiania, following for 
hours a fiord sometimes narrowing to rapids, 
then widening into a lake dotted with islands. 
The farther south and east we went, the neater 
and more fertile grew the farms. We were in 
a comfortable carriage, with a fat and jolly coach- 
man, who asked numberless questions about 
America and our travels; but he was very care- 
ful of his horses, and drove so slowly that it 
seemed as if we should never reach our journey's 
end. Most of the day we were gradually ascend- 
ing until the figures, cut at intervals in the 
rocks at the roadsides, told us that we were 
twenty-three hundred and forty feet above sea 
level. I wish this could be adopted at home; 



156 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

among the White Mountains, for instance, how 
it would add to the interest and information of 
travellers. 

From this height we looked down into fertile 
valleys, and on to the tops of seas of firs and 
pines. The distant mountains were hazy, and 
only a gleaming spot, almost in the clouds, told 
us where the sun shone on the snow of the 
Jotunfjeldene. We passed a saeter where six 
ladies are spending the summer. They had 
trimmed their house with birch-trees and flags, 
and were sitting cosily in their porch, reading 
and working as we drove by. 

Our driver said he had seen them starting off 
with their fishing rods, or, with big aprons on, 
doing their housework. 

At last, about ten o'clock, we reached Odnaes, 
the end of our long day's journey. We were 
tired and hungry, I assure you, glad to eat 
supper and hasten to our beds. At half-past 
eight next morning we were off again on a little 
steamer that plies up and down the lake, called 
"Randsfjord," connecting with a railway station 
at its southern end. We made ourselves com- 
fortable with our rugs on a pile of ropes at the 
stern, and watched the shores with their many 
large farms. The hills were now much lower, 



BACK TO CHRISTIANIA. 1 57 

the valleys broader, and everything had a more 
civilized look. We had dinner on the boat; and 
there ate our first raspberries, with rich cream. 
Since our return we have revelled in abundance 
of gooseberries, raspberries, and currants. All 
over Norway fruits and jellies are served in 
large soup-plates, and you are expected to take 
as much cream as you like to fill them, a privi- 
lege we are not slow in improving. At the 
railroad station great red gooseberries were for 
sale, and farther on were strawberries, showing us 
that we had returned to a land of plenty. After 
two weeks of karvari7iger and musost (rusks and 
goat's-milk cheese), a little variety was welcome. 

From three till ten we steamed along in the 
railway train, and then we reached Christian ia, 
which seemed delightfully homelike, especially 
when we saw Mr. Erlsen and Henrik awaiting 
us. It was good to get back; but very strange 
to find it so dark, the days have grown so much 
shorter since we left. The night before at 
Odnaes, we had had our first experience of arriv- 
ing anywhere when it was too dark to see what 
it looked like. 

Sleipner took us out to Birkengaard at his 
accustomed speed, and we found precious letters 
and a nice supper awaiting us. 



158 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

Yesterday, we were very lazy, sitting out on 
the Altan most of the morning, relating our 
adventures and reading accumulated newspapers. 
At noon we went down to the fiord and took 
a sea-bath in the bathing-house, finding it so 
delightful that we mean to take one every day. 
We had tyk melk for breakfast, — a dish of 
bonny-clabber, over which crumbs and sugar are 
sprinkled, and we skim off the creamy top. The 
eggs here are twice the size of those we have 
had on our journeyings, looking fairly gigantic, 
like duck's eggs. The raspberries are enormous 
too ; and as melons, peas, and beans are now in 
season, we find the table a great contrast to the 
meagre fare of our mountain abode. The weather 
too is so different, so much warmer, that we are 
wearing our thinnest clothing, and have to sit on 
the north side of the house. Now I must stop 
writing, for we are to drive into town to meet 
the steamer, as Mr. Erlsen is expecting his 
sister, who has been visiting in England for 
several months. He has told us so much about 
"dear Bertha " that we are almost as eager as 
he, especially as her photographs represent a 
very winning girl. Moreover, there will prob- 
ably be letters from home, and though I have 
just had two, I am still greedy for more. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

HALCYON DAYS. 

Warm-hearted Hermann Erlsen was so im- 
patient to welcome his sister and to introduce 
her to the other girls, that he hurried them off 
far earlier than was needful, and drove at a pace 
that made Ellen and Margaret look at each other 
in astonishment, while they exchanged whispers 
of congratulation that the more timid Annie 
had decided to remain at home to help Mrs. 
Erlsen arrange flowers in every room, dress the 
porch with flags, and prepare a specially tempt- 
ing luncheon for the beloved Bertha. 

When they reached the wharf, and learned 
that the steamer could not be in for an hour, 
he looked first indignant, then blank, and 
finally radiant with a new plan. 

" You have never seen our fish-market ! It is 
there we go; it is quite near and most amusing. " 
The girls willingly agreed, and the panting 
horses were left to cool, while they all walked 
to a square by the water-side, where the fisher- 



160 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

women were coming up the fiord in their boats, 
fastening them in rows to the wharf, spreading 
out their wares, and calling loudly on the passers- 
by. There were great tubs of water with flounders 
still alive, broad trays of silvery herring; sal- 
mon, cod, and whiting were also recognized; but 
many other kinds were new and strange. The 
fresh breeze, the eager, sunburned women, the 
odd dresses and the foreign tongue, were so 
interesting to Ellen that she would gladly have 
spent the whole hour there; but impatient Her- 
mann now remembered some friends at the 
Britannia hotel, on whom they would just have 
time to call, and Margaret much preferring this 
prospect, away they went. 

The Carlens were found breakfasting on a 
flowery piazza overlooking an inner courtyard 
full of plants, and their old acquaintance, Lieu- 
tenant Bonval, was there too. 

"Now is not this far better than that fishy- 
smelling market ?" whispered Margaret, in the 
confusion of welcomes and re-arranging of chairs. 

Half an hour passed very cheerfully, and then 
they returned to the wharf, accompanied by the 
gallant lieutenant. The steamer had come. 
Mr. Erlsen darted on in advance, waving his 
hat; a fluttering handkerchief answered from the 



HALCYON DAYS. l6l 

deck. In an instant he was lost in the crowd. 
The lieutenant and Margaret had lingered on 
the pier, and Ellen was left alone. 

Only for a moment, while her sympathizing 
eyes were searching for the brother and sister in 
the throng before her, and her mind was going 
back to her own arrival here not two months 
ago, she felt a gentle touch on her arm, 
heard a strangely familiar voice saying, "Ellen ! 
Ellen !" and looked straight up into Sidney's 
face. 

Ordinarily it was a quiet face, strong, sincere, 
intelligent, but reserved, not apt to betray the 
owner's emotions. 

Now, however, it was fairly beaming, radiant 
with joy, with tenderness. His eyes were so 
full of love that Ellen, meeting them, and irre- 
sistibly held by their power, felt as if he had 
actually kissed her. Blushing, trembling, un- 
consciously reflecting joy for joy and love for 
love, she could not look away. 

Her sweet shy face bloomed into glad response 
beneath that gaze, as a water lily opens to the 
sun. 

She did not know that he was holding both 
her hands in his; she forgot the surging crowd, 
the noisy teams around them. She only knew 



1 62 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

that the dearest friend of her life was with her, 
and claiming her for his own, though not one 
word had been spoken but that low-breathed 
" Ellen ! Ellen ! " This rapturous moment was 
suddenly clouded by fear. 

"Oh, Sidney! There is no bad news, is 
there ?" she cried, her face growng white with 
a sharp pang of self-reproach and anxiety. She 
faltered visibly; and in an instant his arm was 
around her, and he held her closely while he 
whispered : — 

"No, no, no, my darling! Everybody is 
well. I only came because I could not live 
without you any longer. Your mother gave me 
leave, Ellen. May I stay, dear?" 

Back came the rosy red to her cheeks, the 
shy gladness to her eyes; but she slipped from 
his clasping arms just in time, for now Hermann 
and his pretty sister made their way through 
the chattering crowd, and Margaret and the 
lieutenant appeared on the other side. Mutual 
introductions and congratulations now made a 
pleasant confusion, which was most welcome as 
a shield to our Ellen in the bewilderment of her 
new happiness. 

Hermann began by insisting that Sidney 
should go with the rest at once to Birkengaard, 



HALCYON DAYS. 1 63 

but this being declined, made him promise to 
come to tea and spend a long evening, an invi- 
tation satisfactorily though silently indorsed by 
Ellen. She was really glad to look forward to 
a brief interval in which to question and com- 
pose her throbbing heart. 

On the homeward drive she left the conversa- 
tion almost wholly to the others; but Hermann 
and Bertha were so bubbling over with pleasure, 
and Margaret so well able to share it all, that 
Ellen's silence was unnoticed; her happy, 
cordial face was enough. 

The four girls had time for a sea-bath before 
dinner, and spent the afternoon with the Erlsens 
in the linden alley and fruit garden, exchanging 
their summer adventures and experiences. Two 
New York ladies drove out and made a long 
call, one of them amazing our girls by remark- 
ing that she " soon tired of scenery, and liked to 
come back to cities and shops." Ellen slipped 
away after this, and had a quiet hour alone, 
sitting in her balcony; but it is to be feared that 
even her beloved blue fiord and softly waving 
woods were for once unnoticed by her dreamy 
eyes. Her inner vision was fixed upon the 
yellow, sandy beaches of Cape Cod, the solemn 
forests of Lake Placid, the sunny parks and 



1 64 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

marble corridors of Washington, the winding 
river and leafy gardens of Cambridge, in all of 
which Sidney the boy and Sidney the man had 
been her ever-congenial, ever-thoughtful, and, as 
she now perceived, the ever-loved and preferred 
companion. Once she started up and took her 
portfolio and tried to write to her mother, but 
ended by destroying her attempts. One said too 
much, the next too little, and she said to her- 
self, "To-morrow will be better, ,, and then 
gave her whole thought to choosing and donning 
her very prettiest dress for tea. 

The evening was one of unmixed happiness. 
She was very proud of her lover. His manner, 
his words, so shielded and calmed her that she 
soon lost the agitating sense of the newness of 
their relations, and ceased wondering how and 
when the others must know. After leaving the 
table, he stood aside with her by a window, and 
gently asked her permission to tell Mrs. Erlsen 
that they were, by her mother's approval, 
engaged. 

* For we are, are we not, darling? " he added, 
leading her out upon the shaded piazza; "and 
we ought to tell her, as your present chaperone, 
ought we not ? " 

Ellen's reply was not very audible; so he 



HALCYON DAYS. 1 65 

made assurance doubly sure by taking her blush- 
ing face between his hands and giving her his 
first kiss. Then he left her among the vines, 
and had a quiet talk with Mrs. Erlsen, after 
which he carried off his beloved, without apology, 
for a long happy ramble in the garden and woods. 
She went directly to her own room when he left; 
and there the Harleys found her, and hugged 
her to their hearts' content, declaring that they 
had always known, since the old Adirondack 
days, that Sidney loved the ground she walked 
on. 

The next day, leaving Bertha to unpack, 
Hermann drove the other three girls into Chris- 
tiania to pay a promised visit to their beloved 
" Michael Krohn. " It is needless to state that Mr. 
Carruth met and accompanied them. They found 
a great wash going on, — blankets flapped in the 
noontide breeze, and the decks were undergoing 
a thorough scrubbing. Annie and Margaret felt 
sorry to have Sidney see it under such unroman- 
tic conditions; but everything was right to him 
that day, and he felt the deepest interest in 
being shown Ellen's state-room and all her 
favorite nooks on deck. It was a blow, how- 
ever, to learn that Captain Bjornstadt was not on 
board; but they consoled themselves by leaving 



1 66 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

an invitation for him to take tea at Birkengaard 
the next day, to meet Sidney and Bertha. 

Then they turned reluctantly away, but had 
gone but a few steps, when a familiar figure, 
with evident "sea-legs," hove in sight, and bore 
down upon the party. A great bowing and 
handshaking ensued. After receiving the cap- 
tain's promise to come the next day, they did a 
little shopping (including a certain ring) and 
returned to Birkengaard. 

The afternoon was spent in the garden, look- 
ing for the coolest spot, Margaret said; and 
Ellen seemed to find it finally in her room, 
where she succeeded in writing to her mother 
and to Amy. Sidney had promised to tell their 
news to his family, and Ellen had a happy 
assurance that they would all be pleased. 

Both Sidney and Captain Bjornstadt came to 
tea the next day, the latter bringing each of the 
girls a picture of the " Michael Krohn " at anchor 
in Bergen harbor, and to Ellen, his favorite, the 
American flag, made in their honor on the 
Fourth of July. It smelled rather fishy, and was 
not exactly clean; but she was much gratified, 
and accepted it as a precious souvenir. 

The weather continued extremely warm, and 
the morning sea-baths were greatly enjoyed by 



HALCYON DAYS. 1 67 

all, in spite of the numerous crabs, which were 
often too attentive. 

One morning was devoted to the National 
Gallery, with Sidney as escort. They were 
most interested in Libermann's pictures of peas- 
ant life, and Arbo's mythological subjects, one 
representing Asgaard's hosts, with the Valky- 
ries bearing the slain to Valhalla, and the rush- 
ing multitude between heaven and earth, the 
moon below them, lurid clouds behind, and 
Thor, with uplifted hammer, towering over all. 

One lovely afternoon Sidney went with them 
to their favorite island, Hoved<£. Mr. Erlsen 
borrowed Ellen's flag, and hoisted it at the stern 
of the boat. They rowed first to the "Michael 
Krohn," hoping to take the captain with them; 
but he was not on board, so greetings were left 
for him, and they steered for the island. While 
the others arranged their picnic supper, Ellen 
took Sidney to the highest point, where they 
had a most beautiful view of the city, its towers 
and spires rising against a background of hills 
on one hand, while on the other, the fiord, with 
its green islands and flitting sails, was more 
lovely still. 

" This whole summer has seemed like a dream, " 
said Ellen, after they had stood a long time in 



1 68 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

silent enjoyment. " I have been fearing all the 
time that I should wake up and find it so; and 
now this is most wonderful, most unreal of all, 
— that we should both be here; that I should be 
showing you Norway, just as you used to show 
me Washington, and everybody so kind; and I 
so much, so much — " she stopped, her voice 
ending in a little sob. 

"Go on, dear," he pleaded. "Let me hear 
you say it ; you have only let me guess it before, 
you know." 

" So much happier than I have ever been 
before," she whispered; and presently they went 
down to a pretty feast of fruits and cakes, after 
which the ruins were explored by the whole 
party, and then came the tranquil rowing home, 
while the sunset glow was fading, mists soften- 
ing the details of the city, the spires blue and 
purple against a yellow and rose-colored sky. 

The days were now so much shorter, that for 
the first time they saw the streets lighted as 
they drove out to Birkengaard, and had lamps 
on the eight-o'clock supper-table. The days 
went by all too swiftly, for it had been decided 
that the three girls should sail for Leith with 
Sidney, the first week in September, in the 
Copenhagen steamer, and thence travel through 



HALCYON DAYS. 1 69 

Scotland and the English Lake Country to 
Liverpool. 

The morning after their island picnic, Ellen 
and Annie walked into town with Mr. Erlsen, 
and meeting Sidney took him to the Christiania 
Botanic Gardens, beautifully situated on a south- 
west slope towards the fiord, ot which and the 
old town, there were lovely glimpses through 
graceful trees. Mr. Erlsen spoke to Professor 
Schribehr, the resident professor, and he joined 
them in his garden attire, pruning scissors and 
knife hanging to his belt. In one hot-house 
they saw begonias only, and of one species, but 
a wonderful variety of shape and color. Another 
contained the most beautiful colored leaves they 
had ever seen; but most interesting of all was a 
room so hot that Annie could not remain in it. 

It was in one sense a royal palace, or rather 
the prison of an exiled queen, the Victoria 
Regia. Her broad green shield rested on the 
surface of the water, and in the middle was a 
brownish, hairy thing which they were told 
would within a day or two burst into beauty and 
reveal her face. 

Brilliant leaved plants from the tropics, that 
should remind the imprisoned queen -when she 
awoke of her far-off African home, were grouped 



170 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

around her. The ladies of her court were blue 
and pink and white water-lilies. In the west 
room were magnificent Gloxinias. 

" Oh, how Cousin Miranda would enjoy this ! " 
cried Ellen. " I feel as if I had more than my 
share. I must write to her this afternoon. " 

Here Professor Schribehr came up and pre- 
sented her with a pretty branch of birch, with 
deeply cut leaves. Ellen's face was so full of 
happy, genuine enjoyment that every one near 
her felt cheered and attracted; and Sidney, as he 
watched her, felt more and more astonished at 
his own good fortune in having won her love. 
Every evening he appeared at Birkengaard, 
where he was already a favorite with the whole 
family, and every forenoon was spent in explor- 
ing the city or suburbs with his beloved, — 
halcyon days indeed for both. He took great 
credit to himself for leaving her to her friends 
and herself in the afternoons ; and it was in one 
of these that she wrote the following letter, her 
last from sunny Birkengaard. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



THE LAST LETTER. 



BlRKENGAARD, August, l88-. 

Dear Cousin Miranda, — We are so busy 
showing Sidney all we can of our dear Norwegian 
haunts, that it is hard to write even a short 
letter. Sunday afternoon, we sat in the linden 
walk and read Longfellow's version of the " Saga 
of King Olaf." It is doubly interesting now 
that I know more about these times. Monday, 
we rowed to Lagersoen, where Oscar's Hall, the 
king's hunting lodge, is situated. We were 
shown the dining-hall furnished in oak, and with 
large frescos on the walls representing Nor- 
wegian scenery, and as a sort of frieze, medal- 
lions by Lidermann of peasant life, very 
beautiful. 

We strolled through the woods, went up on 
the roof, read Scott on the veranda, and rowed 
back to Birkengaard in time for dinner. 



172 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

Wednesday. 

Yesterday, we took Sidney to see the Vik- 
ing ship at the Museum, and Professor Rugg 
opened many of the cases, and let us handle the 
golden ornaments. They were so heavy that I 
had no desire to wear them. To-day, we did 
shopping, and bought photographs, and had our 
photographs taken. I am so plump and brown 
you will hardly know me. 

Friday. 

Yesterday, the Harleys and Erlsens, Sidney 
and I started for a tour in Ringerike. We took 
a little steamer from Christiania to Sandviken. 
The boat went in and out among the islands, 
stopping here and there. From Sandviken, we 
drove to Sundvolden, over the beautiful road along 
the Thyrifiord, which I described in my letter 
about Honefos. We took a cariole for Annie 
and Margaret (Margaret on behind where the 
skydsgut, or driver, usually sits), and Sidney and 
I had one byerre, and Mr. and Mrs. Erlsen 
another. 

A cariole always reminds me of the end of a 
canoe on wheels, and you sit as in a canoe, with 
your feet straight out before you. We changed 
once or twice before we reached Humledal ; and 



THE LAST LETTER. 1 73 

from there we rode in a char-a-banc, which, 
though less novel, is more comfortable and 
sociable. We had two nice little horses, and 
they trotted swiftly and smoothly along, the 
views of lake and distant mountains most 
beautiful. 

["Oh, can't you see that child's sweet, happy 
face?" cried her mother, wiping away her tears 
of pleasure, when Mrs. Willoughby read this 
aloud at the breakfast-table. 

" Indeed I can," answered Cousin John. " It 's 
as good as the * Strange Adventures of a Phaeton, ' 
and the dear little maiden deserves it all." 

"And Sidney, too," said Miranda. "Can't 
you imagine his honest brown eyes first drink- 
ing in his little sweetheart and then the land- 
scape? What a comfort it is not to have it a 
stranger coming into the family, but one of our 
own boys whom we know all about ! " 

Then she resumed : — ] 

We pointed out everything to Sidney with the 
pride of old residents, but missed the snow 
crowns on the peaks which were there in June. 

We reached Sundvolden about eight, and after 
supper walked for awhile on the shores of the 
fjord (it seems more Norwegian to spell it so) 
and across a little bridge, the full moon shining 



174 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

brightly on the water, and a large bonfire was 
flashing and glowing on a distant island. The 
air was cool and clear. We girls had a large 
room with three beds curtained with white and 
looking very clean and comfortable; but, alas! 
"things are not what they seem. ,, Next morn- 
ing we were up early and off for a climb up the 
mountain called Krog Kieven, which was near 
by. 

["Now what a convenient word we is," inter- 
posed Cousin John, demurely. " It may mean 
six or it may mean two/'] 

The road was very pretty, with firs and rocks, 
and steep cliffs overgrown with moss and ferns, 
deep ravines, in whose cool depths we heard 
waters gurgling, and at the top a view which 
well repaid us. In the afternoon we started on 
our return journey with a driver who fell asleep 
and almost smashed us against another wagon, 
whose driver was asleep too. At Humledal, we 
had again the nice horses of the day before, and 
reached Sandviken so quickly that we had an 
hour before the boat left, which we spent in a 
pine grove reading Whittier aloud. 

["Mr. Erlsen, of course," murmured the 
professor. 

"Hush, John," said his wife, and read on.] 



THE LAST LETTER. 1 75 

Sunday. 

We went to church this morning, and in the 
afternoon sat in a fir grove; and Sidney read us 
one of Mr. Brooks's sermons, and I could almost 
believe myself in Appleton Chapel, his words 
are so suggestive of his looks and manner. 
While sitting there, we heard a great commotion 
in the bird world, and down came a dead dove, 
evidently killed by a hawk. The hawk came 
swooping down several times to recover his prey; 
but we carried it home, and the children buried 
it with much solemnity. 

In the evening Mr. Arbo came, and we planned 
an excursion to Birkengaard saeter, which we 
carried out next day. Sidney and Mr. Arbo 
came out to a nine o'clock breakfast, and started 
with us on the walk. In the early morning it 
had been so misty that all the hills were hidden; 
but one after another lost its veil, and when we 
left home the sun was shining brightly, and only 
a soft haziness lay over the distance. We soon 
turned from the dusty road into a fascinating 
little foot-path which followed the windings of a 
brook. The ground was green with moss and 
ferns, except where the path made a ribbon of 
rich brown. 



176 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

Above us rose tall, slender firs against a deep 
blue sky. The brook danced at our side, now 
dark in shadow, now golden in sunshine. We 
walked slowly, stopping often to enjoy the 
beauty of the day. Mr. Arbo busied himself 
with his sketch-book when we halted, and Sidney 
read aloud from Burns. At the sseter house, we 
had luncheon, and then encamped in the woods 
near by. 

Annie had brought needle and thread, and 
devoted herself to mending her sun-umbrella, 
while Mr. Arbo sketched her. Margaret and I 
reclined in sleepy but graceful attitudes, and 
were sketched also. When finished, the two 
were inscribed " Penniless Daughter of Toil " 
and "Luxurious Children of Ease. " Mrs. 
Erlsen and Sidney did not keep still long 
enough to be added. When it was cooler, 
we all went to a higher part of the hill, where 
there is a tower, from which we counted seven 
ranges of hills, one behind another. We 
reached home about eight, after a most happy 
day. 

Tuesday, we went into town for final shopping. 
Sidney has bought exquisite gifts for his mother 
and sisters, and been very extravagant for me, 
in spite of all my scolding. I do not dare to 



THE LAST LETTER. 177 

show a liking for anything. We all dined at 
the Rosens, a thoroughly Norwegian meal. 
First, sausages served in a dish with cauliflower 
and drawn butter, and surrounded by a wreath 
of ham ; second, boiled flounder ; third, chicken 
and mushrooms; fourth, game; fifth, ice-cream; 
sixth, apricots, apples, gooseberries, and wine. 
After dinner we wandered about the garden, 
picking flowers, eating cherries, and drinking 
coffee. In the evening Miss Hegerdahl played, 
and her mother sang some very quaint and amus- 
ing Greenland songs. Then came supper; and 
soon after we took our leave. To-morrow, we 
go to Mr. Arbo's studio, and then by steamer 
to Sandviken, and thence to Tahum Church for 
a lovely view and a picnic. The next day, we 
pack ; and Friday, we leave dear, beautiful Nor- 
way in the "Angelo." This is my last letter 
from Birkengaard. Our summer has been de- 
lightful from beginning to end. 

You will be glad to see how well Annie and 
Margaret are. 

We agree that we have enjoyed far, far more 
than we anticipated; and we should be quite 
heart-broken in leaving the Erlsens, if they 
had not promised to come to America next 
summer. 

12 



178 A NORWAY SUMMER. 

It is hard enough to leave this dear Norway; 
but I must some time come again and bring 
you all. - n v 

Sidney sends love to everybody, and so does 

Ellen. 



the END. 



BOOKS OF TRAVEL 

PUBLISHED BY 

Messrs. ROBERTS BROTHERS. 

It is a very good office one man does another when 

he tells him the manner of his being pleased. 

Sir Richard Steele. 



ALCOTT (Louisa M.). 

Shawl-Straps. A Voyage to Brittany, France, Switzerland, Italy, 
and London. i6mo. #1.00. 

APPLETON (Thomas G.). 

A Nile Journal. With Illustrations by Eugene Benson. i2mo. 

#2.25. 

Easy and delightful reading, carrying one along the whole course of the " river 
of Egypt," from Cairo to the waters above the cataract, —a distance of more than 
eight hundred miles. It is the flowing journal of a poet with a constant inspiration 
beiore his eyes. — ZiotCs Herald. 

Syrian Sunshine. Notes of Travel. i6mo. #1.00. 

^ A bright and pleasant sketch of six weeks' travel in Palestine, abounding in 
picturesque descriptions of Eastern scenery and life. The Turkish problem is 
discussed at some length, adding not a little to the keen and observant interest of 
the book. — Hartford Post. 

ARNOLD (Sir Edwin), 

India Revisited. With thirty-two full-page Illustrations. i2mo. 
#2.00. 

BATES (Henry Walter). 

The Naturalist on the River Amazons. A Record of Adven- 
tures, Habits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian and Indian Life, and 
Aspects of Nature under the Equator, during Eleven Years of Travel. 
With forty Illustrations. Post 8vo. $2.50. 

BLANC (Madame [Th* Bentzon])* 

The Condition of Woman in the United States. A Travellers 

Notes. With a Portrait, and a short Biographical Sketch by Mario 

Bertaux. Translated by Abby L. Alger. i6mo. $1.25. 

In addition to a critical sketch of our noted women, Madame Blanc gives us 
her impressions of women's colleges, university extension, women's clubs and 
societies, and popular fads in Boston, New York, Chicago, Bryn Mawr, Galesburg, 
and other cities, gleaned during her recent visit to America. 



BOOKS OF TRAVEL. 



CHANEY (George L.). 

Aloha (A Hawaiian Salutation). Travels in the Sandwich Islands. 

With Illustrations and Map. i6mo. $1.50. 

It is an account of a minister's trip to the Hawaiian Islands. The scenery, the 
people, the productions, and the grand results of missionary labors are told with 
such simplicity and enthusiasm that you almost seem to see and share the pleasure 
of his experiences. It is an excellent book for Sunday-school libraries or the 
family circle. — Detroit Christian Advocate. 

DALL (Caroline H*). 

Letters Home from Colorado, Utah, and California. i2mo. #1.50. 

It is refreshing to get hold of a book of travel that is written in a spirit of 
honesty and common-sense. — Boston Post. 

DRAKE (Samuel Adams). 

Old Landmarks and Historic Personages of Boston. With 

ninety-three illustrations. i2mo. #2.00. 

This volume contains a vast fund of information and anecdotes about old 
Boston, its notable buildings, markets, streets, and most memorable characters. 
The numerous illustrations represent many objects of curious historical interest 
which are remembered only by the oldest citizens, and others that are known only 
by tradition. The great fire of 1872 lends peculiar interest to several chapters of 
this work. 

Old Landmarks and Historic Fields of Middlesex. With thirty- 
nine Illustrations and Maps. i2mo. #2.00. 

It is another successful effort to put into imperishable form for us and coming 
generations traditions, places, and objects associated with the great men and 
events of the past, which otherwise would soon be lost forever. The author, with 
his inexhaustible historic lore and his keen appreciation of every item, anecdote, 
relic, and place which belongs to the olden times, takes the reader by hand, and 
traversing old Middlesexshire, stops at every dwelling, hill, valley, river, or port, 
and brings back the men and events of colonial and revolutionary years. — Watch- 
man and Reflector. 

Around the Hub. A Boy's Book about Boston. Profusely illus- 
trated. Square i6mo. $1.25. 

Beginning with some accounts and anecdotes of the Indians in Boston, he 
proceeds to state who the first settlers in Boston were ; describes the ancient 
landmarks ; and gives an idea of the government as it then existed, and from this 
point gives a rapid sketch of the important part sustained by Boston in the War 
of the Revolution. — Chicago Saturday Evening Herald. 

FULLER (Margaret)* 

At Home and Abroad ; or, Things and Thoughts in America and 
Europe. (Including u Summer on the Lakes.") 121110. #1.50. 



BOOKS OF TRAVEL. 






GOWER (Lord Ronald, FAS.), 

My Reminiscences. With Portrait. i2mo. $2.00. 

Lord Gower gives a bright description of Stafford House, where he was born ; 
of Cliveden and Trentham, the English family seats; and of Dunrobin, the 
Scottish castle of the Sutherlands. Then he gives brief histories of his father's 
family, "the Gowers," and of his mother's, "the Carlisle Howards." Thus 
having introduced his family and himself, the author begins to jot down his own 
recollections. — Grand Rapids Post. 

GREELY (A* W.). 

Handbook of Arctic Discoveries. i6mo. #1.00. 

This book, written by the Chief Signal Officer of the United States Army, sets 
off clearly the origin, progress, and extent of Arctic discoveries, confining itself as 
far as possible to the original discoveries made by successful expeditions, and 
avoiding repetition of experiences over well-known ground. Instead of the usual 
chronological treatment, the book is divided into a series of sketches, under sepa- 
rate chapters, devoted to special lines of exploration ; in this manner are treated 
distinctly Bering Strait, Spitzbergen, the Northwest Passage, the Franklin 
Search, Smith's Sound, the Northeast Passage, Greenland, and Dr. Nansen's 
Novel and Dangerous Voyage in the ship " Fram." 

While detailed Arctic explorations are, as a general rule, avoided, yet in several 
instances, such as those of Peary and the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, the 
experiences of the explorers are dwelt on. — Preface- 

HALE (Rev. E. E.). 

Gone to Texas; or, The Wonderland Adventures of a Pullman. 

i6mo. #1.00. 

There are few books of travel which combine in a romance of true love so many 
touches of the real life of many people, in glimpses of happy homes, in pictures of 
scenery and sunset, as the beautiful panorama unrolled before us from the windows 
of this Pullman car. — Exchange. 

Seven Spanish Cities, and the Way to them. i6mo. #1.25. 

" Spanish Cities" is in the author's most lively style, full of fun, with touches 
of romance, glimpses of history, allusions to Oriental literature, earnest talk about 
religion, consideration of Spanish politics, and a rapid, running description of 
everything that observant eyes could possibly see. Mr. Hale makes Spain more 
attractive and more amusing than any other traveller has done, and he lavishes 
upon her epigram and wit. — Boston A dvertiser. 

The New Harry and Lucy. A Story of Boston in the Summer of 
1891. By Edward E. Hale and Lucretia P. Hale. With illus- 
trations by Herbert D. Hale. i6mo. $1.25. 

It will give young readers who have never visited Boston a good idea of its 
notable features; and the familiar way in which the information is conveyed, in 
the form of letters, is one of the chief charms of the story. The title was suggested 
by one of Miss Edgeworth's famous tales for children, and the use of the names 
Sanford and Merton will recall another literary favorite of by-gone times. 

Stories of War. Told by Soldiers. Collected and edited by E. E. 
Hale. i6mo. #1.00. 



BOOKS OF TRAVEL. 



HALE (Rev* E, E.) - {continued). 

Stories of the Sea. Told by Sailors. Collected and edited by E. E. 
Hale. i6mo. $1.00. 

Stories of Adventure. Told by Adventurers. Collected and edited 
by E. E. Hale. i6mo. #1.00. 

Stories of Discovery. Told by Discoverers. Collected and edited by 
E. E. Hale. i6mo. #(.oo. 

HAMERTON (Philip G.)- 

A Summer Voyage on the River Saone. With one hundred and 

fifty-two Illustrations by Joseph Pennell and the Author, i vol. 

4to. Gilt. #2.50. 

A Painter's Camp. Book I. In England. Book II. In Scotland. 

Book III. In France. i2mo. $2.00. 

Like the "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," or the " Swiss Family Robinson," 
it brought to maturer minds, as those do to all, the flavor of breezy, out-of-door 
experiences, — an aroma of poetry and adventure combined. It was full of art, 
and art discussions, too ; and yet it needed no rare technical knowledge to under- 
stand and enjoy it. — Joel Benton. 

Round My House. Notes of Rural Life in France, in Peace and 
War. i2mo. #2.00. 

After describing this tempting place, the author goes on to give his readers just 
that full record of what he saw in his daily life which is most interesting and useful 
to an outsider. The merit of this part is, that it so exactly resembles the talk of 
a sensible man whose tact enables him to know just what his hearers would like 
to hear. — A tlantic Monthly. 

The Sylvan Year, and the Unknown River. The two in one vol- 
ume. i2mo. #2.00. 

JACKSON (Helen), 

Bits of Travel. Illustrated. Square i8mo. #1.25. 
The style is fresh and invigorating, quite out of the grimly geographical and 
statistical vein of the conventional tourist. Mrs. Hunt has a woman's keen per- 
ception, and a certain brightness and ease of expression which lends a charm to 
the narration of incidents which in themselves would be of little intrinsic interest. 
It is a thoroughly delightful and entertaining book. — Boston Journal. 

Bits of Travel at Home. Square i8mo. $1.50. 

Surely the Switzerland of America has heretofore had no more devoted admirer 
of its wonderful scenery, which is portrayed with a felicity of description well 
suited to the grandness of the subject. A view of Colorado Springs, the home 
of the author, drawn by Moran, enriches the volume, which is of uniform size 
with " Bits of Travel." 

I Glimpses of Three Coasts. i2mo. $1.50. 

These are " Bits of Travel " in California and Oregon, Scotland and England, 
and Norway, Denmark, and Germany, partly new and partly reprinted from the 
"Atlantic Monthly " and " Century Magazine." 

iv 



BOOKS OF TRAVEL. 



JEBB (Mrsjohn Gkdwin), 

Life and Adventures of John Gladwin Jebb. A Strange Career. 
With an Introduction by H. Rider Haggard, and a Portrait of Mr. 
Jebb. i2mo. #1.25. 

A remarkable romance of modern life. — Daily Chronicle. 

A better told and more marvellous narrative of a real life was never put into the 
covers of a small octavo volume. — To-Day, 

As fascinating as any romance. . . . The book is of the most entrancing inter- 
est. — St. James's Budget. 

LOOMS (Eben J.). 

An Eclipse Party in Africa. Chasing Summer across the Equator 
in the U. S. S. " Pensacola." By Eben J. Loomis, of the U. S. Sci- 
entific Expedition to West Africa, 1889-90, Senior Assistant U. S. 
Nautical Almanac Office. With an Introduction by Prof. David P. 
Todd, M. A., Ph.D., Chief of the Expedition. Eighty-four Illustrations. 
8vo. Gilt top. #4.50. 

An exceedingly well-written book. It compares favorably with some of the 
best books of travel. After the " Pensacola " reaches Africa, the story of the 
expedition and the preparations made for the eclipse are full of interest. The 
accounts of the working of the great diamond mines in South Africa are full of 
interesting incidents, and bits of folk-lore are introduced pleasantly through the 
book. The chapter devoted to St. Helena has an especial interest at the present 
time. There is nothing technical in the book. It is distinctly popular in its 
character. The photographs are charming. 

MACGREGOR (John, NLA.). 

A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe on Rivers and Lakes of 
Europe. Map and Illustrations. i6mo. $1.25. 

The author built his canoe, named her the " Rob Roy," and the log of his 
charming cruise in her he here narrates. He traversed the rivers Thames, Rhine, 
Danube, Seine, and many others, besides various lakes and canals, and the British 
Channel, and the record forms one of the most delightful books of adventure and 
travel of the day. The book is full of characteristic engravings descriptive of the 
voyage. 

The Rob Roy on the Baltic. A Canoe Cruise through Norway, 
Sweden, Denmark, Schleswig-Holstein, the North Sea, and the Baltic. 
With Maps and Illustrations. i6mo. $1.25. 

The Voyage alone in the Yawl Rob Roy, from London to Paris, 
and back by Havre, the Isle of Wight, South Coast, etc. i6mo. $1.25. 

The Rob Roy Canoe. The above three books complete in one vol- 
ume. i2ino. #2.00. 

v 



BOOKS OF TRAVEL. 



MOLLOY ( J, U). 

Our Autumn Holiday on French Kivers. With Illustrated Title- 
page. i6mo. #1.00 ; paper covers, 50 cents. 

A quite fascinating book for idle days. Mr. Molloy has the true gift of narrat- 
ing. He is a charming chronicler of the voyage of " The Marie " on the tumultu- 
ous Seine and on the solemn Loire. . . . A bright, sunny book, so full of pleasant 
fun and refined enjoyment. — Boston Advertiser. 

MONTAGU (Lady Mary Wortley). 

Letters. Edited, with a Memoir, by Mrs. Sarah J. Kale. 121110. 

J&1.50. 

These letters breathe the sweet fragrance of young love, strengthened and 
enriched by thoughts at once profound and fresh. They hold the mirror up to 
life in those cities, showing the reader just what he most wants to see. We hazard 
nothing in saying that from these letters one may get a better insight into the 
Europe of that period than from the same amount of reading in anything else. 
Lady Montagu will always live in literature as the most pleasing and instructive 
of letter-writers. — Chicago Journal. 

MOULTON (Louise Cnandler), 
Random Rambles. iSmo. $1.25. 

English thought is touched with a delicate and graphic hand. French liveliness 
and Italian weather, Rome, Florence and Venice, the Passion Play and Munich, 
a French watering-place, Westminster Abbey, London literary life, the streets 
and shops of Paris, — these are the things about which Mrs. Moulton writes, and 
which she tells of in that delightful and sparkling manner that one cannot grow 
tired of. — Thomas S. Collier. 

Lazy Tours in Spain and Elsewhere. 121x10. Cloth. #1.50. 

The laziness referred to begins and ends in the title ; it does not exist in the 
mind or pen of the "lazy tourist." The charge may not be brought against Mrs. 
Moulton's book, as it may against so many volumes of a nature similar, that it is, 
unfortunately, not illustrated. The word-painting is sufficient ; and whether Mrs. 
Moulton is in Spain, France, or England, we are always willing to accompany her. 
The volume may be read with profit and pleasure, not only by those who have 
enjoyed the treat of European travel, but also by those who have been less fortu- 
nate. The style is at all times vivid, refined, and full of charming imagery. — 
Public Opinion. 



NICHOLS (Laura D.). 

A Norway Summer. Illustrated. i6mo. #1.25. 

NIERIKER (MayAlcott), 

Studying Art Abroad, and How to do it Cheaply. i6mo. 50 cents. 

Practical advice for lady students desirous of studying art in England, France, 
or Italy; points out the best and cheapest route to take, the cheapest and most 
advantageous way to live, to shop, to study, etc. 



BOOKS OF TRAVEL. 



PELLICO (Silvio). 

My Prisons. Memoirs of Silvio Pellico. With a Prefatory Notice 
by Epes Sargent, and fifty Illustrations by Hammatt Billings. 
i6mo. #1.25. Square i2mo, gilt edges, #2.25 ; paper covers, 50 cents. 
Cheaper edition, i6mo, 75 cents. 

Not for many a day have we read so delightful a book, — a tale of actual suffering 
and sorrow so irradiated with the light of genius and love that every page increases 
in interest to the very close. We had long heard of Silvio Pellico, the young 
Italian poet and patriot, imprisoned in the dungeons of Austria, but never sup- 
posed that a theme so sombre as prison life could be made to possess the attrac- 
tions of this simple story. It well deserves its world-wide celebrity. — Chicago 
Evening Journal. 

PENNELL (Joseph and Elizabeth Robins). 

Two Pilgrims' Progress from Fair Florence to the Eternal City of 

Rome. Delivered under the Similitudes of a Ride, wherein is discovered 

the Manner of their Setting Out, their Dangerous Journey, and Safe 

Arrival at the Desired City. With Illustrations by Joseph Pennell. 

121110. $2.00; paper covers, 50 cents. 

They were sprightly and good-humored pilgrims who made this unconventional 
excursion, laughing at the annoyances of the road and taking all its pleasures with 
zest, looking at the beauties of the country and the picturesqueness of old towns. 
In short, they have made a very pleasant little book ; and their jovial friend, 
Charles G Leland, has added to it a characteristic " Apology," which we are glad 
to have, though surely no apology was needed. — N. Y. Tribune. 

ROBERTS (Edwards). 

Santa Barbara and Around There. With sixteen Illustrations. 

i6mo. 75 cents. 

A choice little volume, conveying just the information which a traveller or 
invalid wants before visiting what is now called the Nice of America. — Utica 
Herald. 

ROBINSON (Phil). 

Sinners and Saint3. A Tour across the States and around them, 
with Three Months among the Mormons. i6mo. #1.50. 

SLOCUM (Captain Joshua). 

Voyage of the Liberdade. Small 4to. Illustrated. #1.00. 

Perhaps there is nothing in the realm of fact or fiction pertaining to marine 
adventure more exciting or absorbing than the story Captain Slocum has hnd 
prepared in a handy little volume, which it is safe to assume no reader will lay 
down until the last word, and then only with a regret that the narrative was not 
longer. — Boston Globe. 



BOOKS OF TRAVEL. 



SMITH (Mary P. Wells). 

Their Canoe Trip. Square i6mo. #1.25. 

A story founded on the actual experiences of two Roxburyboys during a canoe- 
trip on the Concord, Merrimac, Piscataquog, and other rivers. The book abounds 
in incidents, and some of them quaint and curious. 

STEVENSON (Robert Louis)* 

Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes. With a Frontispiece 

Illustration by Walter Crane. i6mo. #1.00; paper cover, 50 cents. 

Mr. Stevenson's journey in the Cevennes is a bright and amusing book for 
summer reading. The author set out alone, on foot, for a twelve days' journey 
over the mountains, with a donkey to carry his luggage. He was deplorably 
ignorant, neither knowing how to pack his load nor drive his donkey, and his 
early experience forms a ridiculous record of disaster. — Providence Journal, 

An Inland Voyage. i6mo. $1.00 ; paper, 50 cents. 

Unlike Captain Macgregor of "Rob Roy" fame, Mr Stevenson does not make 
canoeing itself his main theme, but delights in charming bits of description that, 
in their close attention to picturesque detail, remind one of the work of a skilled 
"genre" painter. Nor does he hesitate, from time to time, to diverge altogether 
from his immediate subject, and to indulge in a strain of gently humorous reflection 
that furnishes some of the pleasantest passages of the book. — Good Literature. 

The Silverado Sqnatters. With a Frontispiece by Walter Crane. 

i6mo. $1.00; paper, 50 cents. 

Mr. Stevenson is an invalid; and in search of health he went to Mount Saint 
Helena, in California, and high up in its sides took possession of a miner's cabin 
fast falling to ruin, — one of the few remnants of the abandoned mining village of 
Silverado. There, with his wife and a single servant, considerable time was spent. 
The interest of the book centres in the graphic style and keen observation of the 
author. — New York World. 

For sale by all 'Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, 
on receipt of price, by 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 

3 SOMERSET STREET, 

BOSTON. 



viii 



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